Photo: Rachel Avery, George Wendt, center, Jesse Merlin. Credit: Thomas Hargis.
 
Even considering the vast number of the films-turned-Broadway-musicals that have been produced in recent years, few would have imagined Stuart Gordon’s bloody 1985 cult classic, Re-Animator, would be a likely candidate to join their ranks. But if you think about it, Re-Animator’s camp-gore trappings make it a natural for the musical treatment. Gordon and his collaborators went back to the laboratory, grafted a bit of Gilbert & Sullivan and a bit of Bernard Herrmann into the proceedings and et voila, Re-Animator is born again as an all-singing, all-dancing Grand Guignol.

Re-Animator: The Musical closely follows the plotline of Gordon’s film (based on the HP Lovecraft short story “Herbert West-Reanimator,” itself a parody of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein). The writing is witty, as sharp as a knife. The cast are wonderfully deadpan (the way camp should be played, of course) and the striking musical score can best be described (and this is a good thing) putrescent Sondheim. Couplets like “His psychosis gives me chills/He cannot love, he only kills!” cannot help but to inject life anew into Gordon’s 25-year-old grindhouse favorite.

If you recall Re-Animator the film, there was quite a lot of blood in it. The musical has even more. According to Variety, the gore effects were created by the same crew who worked on the 1985 film. I believe it. Patrons seated in the front three rows were given trashbag-like ponchos to protect their clothes, but on the night we saw the show, the first ten rows probably should have worn raincoats. And hats. And been issued umbrellas! (For the record, I sat in the middle and remained dry. Just don’t wear any couture and you’ll be fine.)

Jesse Merlin, as the villain of the piece, Dr. Carl Hill, plays the role for everything it’s worth, producing edgy comedy with a well-placed leering sideways glance or dismissive aristocratic grumble. For most of the second act Merlin’s character is in fact, headless, but it hardly seems to affect his operatic bass baritone vocals. Truly the guy is the Paul Lynde of his generation, but with a preposterously good singing voice. Who would forget this fellow with the mellow bellow having seen him perform only once (and headless)? Cheers’ George Wendt, too, gets huge laughs as the college dean who is zombie-fied when his dead body is only brought partially back to life by the reagent and Herbert West is played by Graham Skipper—who is excellent—with a touch of Rainn Wilson and Anthony Perkins thrown in to nice effect. The cast is rounded out by pretty Rachel Avery as Megan the chirpy sweet heroine and her earnest love interest (and West’s roommate) Dan Cain is played by Chris L. McKenna.

Re-Animator: The Musical is unique and terrific fun, the only thing I can think to compare it to is Little Shop of Horrors and if there is any justice in the universe, Re-Animator should enjoy a similar success. It’s not at all difficult to imagine a bigger budget production of this show pleasing audiences on Broadway for years. Re-Animator the Musical just opened last weekend at The Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, but demand for tickets—a bargain at $25—has been so strong that the run has already been extended. Get tickets here.

Re-Animator, the Musical, Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays through Sundays. $25. (800) 595-4849

Below, the trailer from the original 1985 movie. Yes, this is now a musical play!
 

(via Cherry Bombed)

 
Calling all disco fans! Are you partial to a bit of Patrick Cowley? Like the synthetic soundscapes of Claudio Simonetti? Been digging those clips I posted of Rockets? Then Den Haan are the band for YOU.

Sharing the twin obsessions of space/sci-fi and vintage synths, Den Haan produce some of the best electronic-disco-pop around at the moment. After a string of successful releases on cult European labels like Dissident, Optimo Music and Supersoul, today sees the of release their debut long player Gods From Outer Space on their own Courier Of Death label. The duo are quickly gaining a reputation as a hot live act, and some of their music has even been featured in Desperate Housewives, bizarrely enough.

Synths explode like lazer blasts from a space cannon, rolling toms and sleazy vocals bring the drama while arpeggios build to warp speed, sending the listener zooming into the outer reaches of the stratosphere. OK, so they may not doing anything particularly new, but boy do they do it well. This really does sound like vintage-era Cowley (think the Megatron Man album) with the riffs and hooks to match, and unlike the vast majority of their contemporaries on the electro/techno scenes, Den Haan aren’t afraid to have a bit of fun. For proof they have put together this campy trailer for their album:

Den Haan’s Gods From Outer Space Theatrical Trailer:
 

Den Haan’s Gods From Outer Space is available to buy on vinyl and download now from Boomkat. Here’s some more of what’s on offer:
 
Den Haan - “Release The Beast”
 

 
Den Haan - “Night Shift”
 

 
Den Haan - “Russian Boat Commander”
 

 
Den Haan are also offering the up track “Universal Energy” as a free download - you can get it here.

 
Finally!  This audio sketch originally appeared as a hidden bonus on the DVD release of The Day Today in 2004, and I have been waiting ever since for someone to upload it to the internet. Now you can hear two titans of British comedy riffing on conspiracy theories, assassinations, Russian spies and trade unions in their own particular love/hate (mostly hate) style. This sounds totally unscripted, which makes it even better. And this Partridge guy really knows his stuff, Alex Jones should get him on as a guest.
 
Chris Morris & Alan Partridge talk conspiracies:
 

 
Bonus!
 
This is the other Easter egg from The Day Today DVD - Chris Morris speaking to Peter O’Hanrahanrahan live from the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001.
 
The Day Today - 9/11
 

 
You can buy the complete The Day Today on DVD here.
 
Previously on DM: Nupticution: death row lovers to be married while strapped in electric chair and then exececuted

 
Robert Downey Sr.‘s stoned apocalypse Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight got its start in 1975 and then wandered all over the physical and psychic landscape tripping on counterculture mindgames, jazzbo attitudes and post hippie hipsterisms. This is Dada, surrealism and soap opera all mixed up in the salad bowl of your your brain.

The key to digging Downey is to understand that he was fucking with filmgoers expectations. People went to the movies to relax and enjoy the myths that solidified their world views, Downey’s movies are like explosions in some kind of postmodern nickelodeon, disrupting the linear flow at 24 fps. Approaching his films and expecting some soothing reality that reflects the real world is an exercise in frustration and possible nervous breakdown. What Jackson Pollack had done with painting, allowing the paint to paint itself, is what Downey does with film and narrative…he gives it the space to find itself. The result can be a series of happy accidents, genius or the ridiculous.

Behind it all, the music of David Sanborn, Jack Nitzche, and someone credited as Arica.
 

 
New York-based Israeli photographer Noam Galai’s 2006 shots of himself screaming have become unexpectedly widespread emblems of angst and rage that could possibly reach the ubiquity in radical politics of Alberto Korda’s Guerrillero Heroico photo of Che Guevara.

Pro photography blog FStoppers got the exclusive on the fascinating story of Galai’s whim-turned-digital-phenomenon, which spans from his studio to about 40 countries and counting.

After much exploitation of his holler, Galai’s seen fit to cash in himself, which makes sense.
 

Puppet sketch by Logan Stephens.
 
Spanish TV aired this amazing footage of what appears to be an orange sock puppet foiling a robbery. The puppet’s identity is a mystery. After assaulting the would be thief with assorted grocery items and engaging the startled thug in hand to hand combat, the puppet left the scene of the crime. His/her job was done. Police are seeking the puppets identity. The store owner has offered a reward. This kind of heroism and humility you don’t see every day.

The illustration above is not a rendering of the actual puppet. As you can see in the video, the puppet crimestopper has arms and knows how to use them.
 

 
Via The High Definite

 
The new video for “It Was Never Gonna Turn Out Too Good” from Gang Of Four’s recently released album Content.

I’m a big fan of the band, but this moody song with its vocoderized spoken-word vocal is over before it begins. To hell with poetry! Where the funk at? Lift off aborted.

I’m wondering why Gang Of Four’s new stuff feels so restrained. Where’s the fire? Where’s the groove? Is the absence of original Gang members drummer Hugh Burnham and bassist Dave Allen the reason that this seems so listless?
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
24 Second ‘Psycho’
Psycho at 50: Zizek’s Three Floors Of The Mind

(via the always delightful If we don’t, remember me.)

 
Jeff Krulik and John Heyn’s Heavy Metal Parking Lot documents a tailgating party prior to a Judas Priest concert in the parking lot outside of the (now gone) Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, on May 31, 1986. It is one of the most beloved and legendary relics of the 80s & 90s VHS trading scene, of which I myself was a participant. It is a low-fi masterpiece, a work of demented genius and one of the funnies things you’ll ever see.

Twenty-years after the film was made, the music rights were sorted out and Heavy Metal Parking Lot was released legitimately for the first time in 2006.

Now, hilariously, one of the most underground things you could possibly get your hands on back in the day, a true holy grail for people who had heard of it, but who had no way of seeing it, unless they knew the right person, has been licensed by the American Express corporation as part of their SnagFilms website. Of all the things to find a corporate sponsor…  I guess it shows how far pop culture has come.

In any case, this is one of the best, cleanest versions of the film that I’ve yet seen. Brought to you by American Express, it’s Heavy Metal Parking Lot:
 

 
The Prequel: Heavy Metal Picnic!

 
While Ken Loach has his own film called Route Irish, which deals with “the most dangerous road in the world” (aka Baghdad Airport Road), coming out later this month in the UK, Irish film-maker, Eamonn Crudden made his own Route Irish back in 2007, but his dealt with the protest movement at Shannon Airport in Ireland. Crudden spent several years putting his documentary together, which documented:

...the emergence of the Irish antiwar movement between 2002 and 2006 and of the broad popular opposition to the US military use of Ireland’s civilian Shannon Airport in the build-up to, invasion of, and occupation of Iraq.

The documentary follows a loose network of activist groups, individuals and politicians through the story of the rise, fracturing, sudden decline and then disappearance of this movement and then retraces the way in which their combined efforts, energies and strategies served to effectively tear away the Republic of Ireland’s veneer of neutrality and non-alignment in the post September 11th era of the ‘War on Terror’.

The background to the story begins after the September 11 attacks, when the Irish government offered the use of Shannon Airport to the US government. Shannon is one of the three primary airports in Ireland, and is the country’s second busiest. When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, the Irish government still allowed the US military to use the airport. This was a highly controversial decision and sparked a series of demonstrations and a challenge to the High Court.

It also sparked a series of direct actions by demonstrators. In January 2003, a woman smashed a nose cone and attempted to cut fuel lines of a US Navy jet with an axe. Her trial led to her acquittal. Then in February 2003, a group called the Pitstop Ploughshares vandalized a US Navy aircraft at the airport. Members of the group were tried three time. They were eventually all acquitted.

A 2007 survey found 58% of Irish people opposed the use of Shannon for prosecuting the Iraq war.

Cult film director, Alex Cox (Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, Walker) said of Crudden’s video essay:

“Route Irishis an excellent documentary. It deals very very well with the frustrations of a peace movement. It tackles some complex matters which aren’t usually discussed or even thought about.”

 
Bonus trailer for Ken Loach’s ‘Route Irish’, after the jump…
 

 
Another animated tract from Chick Christian Comics. This is one of Jack Chick’s supposed classics, “Tiny Shoes.”

The message here is incredibly messed up, isn’t it? You’re “wicked,” so God will kill your kid. That’s hardly fair! The kid didn’t do anything.

What a weird “ministry”: Devoting your life to scaring the shit out of gullible, superstitious people, for their own good!
 

 
Yes I often promote the products of the label I call er, home: Hometapes. But that’s because they do truly amazing things ! Just look at the art work and packaging for the brand new album Harbors by Wisconsin’s own All Tiny Creatures whilst checking out their pulsating maximalist sound.  Lead Creature Thomas Wincek also does creative time in Volcano Choir with Wisconsin’s favorite son Justin Vernon, he of Bon Iver greatness.  And indeed Vernon is the guest vocalist on An Iris. Ryan Olcott of the late, great Minneapolis band 12 Rods is the guest vocalist on current Pitchfork featured song Glass Bubbles.
 

 

 
Glass Bubbles

 

 
An Iris

 

 
Pre-order Harbors by All Tiny Creatures here

 
Millionaire author Stephen King (who came from humble beginnings) on the Tea party, union-busting Republican weenies and why rich people like him should pay at least half of their income in taxes. Taped on March 8th at the “Awake the State” rally in Sarasota, Florida.

“And remember, when these people talk to you about it, if you like your weekend, thank a union guy. If you like a 40-hour week, thank a union guy. If you like a day’s honest pay for a day’s honest work, thank a union guy!”

Good on Stephen King. He’s a stand-up guy and a good American.
 

 
Via Cynical-C

 
Beautiful black and white cinematography and dreamlike J-horror imagery converge to stunning effect in this video for Deerhoof’s “The Merry Barracks” from their album Deerhoof Vs. Evil.

Directed and edited by Akiko McQuerrey & Jason Drakeford.

Inspired by Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s Hausu?

 
Via Timothy Buckwalter