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Even after 16 years, Chris Morris’ ‘Jam’ is still the sickest, darkest, bleakest TV comedy EVER made
08.31.2016
03:19 pm
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It’s quite something that what was undoubtedly the oddest, most extreme and certainly the most sinister “comedy” series of the year 2000 would still be all of those same things when revisited over a decade and a half later, but this was the conclusion that I invariably came to last week when I re-watched Chris Morris’ legendarily fucked-up Channel Four series Jam. Nothing’s come even close to dethroning it in the intervening years.

Based on audio material that had initially been worked out for a late night radio show called Blue Jam that was broadcast from 1997 through 1999 on BBC1, Jam often had the actors who’d done the original radio work lipsync those same bits for the camera, giving the show an organically disturbing element that was difficult to pinpoint. Indeed, from the very first seconds of Jam, it’s patently obvious that the viewer is about to witness something that’s not only meant to fuck with their heads, but that’s going to accomplish this goal quite successfully. I first caught an episode of Jam in a London hotel room (I was there doing publicity for the second series of my own Channel Four show) and I was utterly flabbergasted by not only what I was seeing before my astonished eyes, I was also gobsmacked (as the Brits are fond of saying) that something like this, something this post-post-post modern, this forward-thinking, this incredibly bleak, moody and just plain fucked-up had made it to television in the first place, having been green-lighted by the very same people who foolishly allowed little me to have a TV show around the same time.

Someone I knew at C4 mailed me VHS tapes of Jam back in New York, and I became an evangelist for it, forcing joints into mouths and making all of my friends watch it. Some of them even thanked me. (One person I’ve not heard from since…)
 

 
But enough of these… words, it’s not like one can “explain” Jam, so let’s take a break now and roll tape. Here’s the first episode of Jam. I know you’re busy, we all are, but for your sake—I’m not doing this for me—watch at least the incredibly brilliant opening sequence and the first sketch, where a worried couple at their wits end (Amelia Bullmore and Mark Heap) lay something quite dark and heavy about their son on his godfather (Kevin Eldon) and ask for a rather big favor.
 

 
Breathtaking, is it not?

Much more ‘Jam’ after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.31.2016
03:19 pm
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These horrifying posters make great gifts for all of the freaks (and dope fiends) on your Xmas list
12.09.2015
07:18 pm
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‘Syphilis: L’Hecatombe’ (“The Mass Slaughter of Syphilis”) by Louis Raemaekers, 1922.  Dutch soldiers returning home from the front with “The French Pox” caused a massive spike in STD-related deaths in the years following the war.

My pal Thomas Negovan owns the Century Guild gallery. Originally founded in Chicago in 1999, in December 2012 he opened a location in the Culver City Arts District of Los Angeles. Tom specializes in Art Nouveau and Symbolist works from Germany, Austria, France, and Italy done between 1880-1920, and includes the lithography of significant artists such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Alphonse Mucha, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; important Symbolist Artworks; and artifacts from the silent film era and German cabaret. Works from his collection are on permanent display in The Art Institute of Chicago, The Detroit Institute of Art, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

This Christmas season, the gallery has selected some of their most macabre and fantastic posters to be printed as limited edition Patronage Prints. Priced under $50, they’ll certainly make… unusual presents for all the weirdos (and drug addicts) on your shopping list…


‘Shadows and Light’ by Walter Schnackenberg is a 1919 Munich cabaret performance depicting a ‘Beauty and the Beast’ theme.


Fritz Lang wrote the silent film script of a woman leading men to their demise in ‘The Dance of Death’ (1919).


A poster advertising the The Grand-Guignol theater, a legendary landmark of terror.  Performances there ran the gamut from horror to comedy, stimulating both extremes of human response.

More after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.09.2015
07:18 pm
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Thrill to the covers of Boris Karloff’s ‘Tales of Mystery’ comic
11.17.2015
11:43 am
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E.C.‘s Tales from the Crypt was long dead and buried by the time I’d picked up my first Spider-Man comic and attempted web-slinging off the garage roof. If I’d known about Tales from the Crypt then, I would have abandoned Peter Parker to life as a useful flyswatter and hung my star to the Crypt Keeper. All things horror were a childhood obsession—and though with hindsight some graduate of Psychology 101 might give my predilection for nasty thrills an asshat theory about using horror movies as a means to control personal fears—the truth is—I just fucking loved ‘em.

Of course, the possibility that out there—somewhere—was a happy marriage of comic book and horror story was a pre-pubescent fantasy as remote as the coupling between Cinderella and Prince Charming. Then one day I discovered Boris Karloff’s Tales of Mystery at the back of a rack of comics and knew the Prince’s luck was looking up.

Ye gods, the covers alone were enough to put my imagination into overdrive—like a hyperactive kid popping bubble wrap—the images of prehistoric beasts devouring fishermen on storm-tossed seas, gruesome subterranean creatures clambering out of crypts, devils torturing unrepentant souls, and a viscous ooze devouring all. The fact that each cover had a passport photo of the debonair Mr. Karloff—a man who looked like he worked at a bank or sold life insurance to the over 50s—only made the thrills more enjoyably fun, as I knew this kindly old man would never, ever, go overboard with the horror. Or would he?

Boris Karloff’s Tales of Mystery was originally a spin-off from his TV series Thriller. When the series was canceled, publisher Gold Star re-titled the comic as Boris Karloff’s Tales of Mystery. It continued to be published after Karloff’s death in 1969, and ran into the seventies—around about the time when I picked-up on it. If you want to have a swatch of the whole set of covers available have a look here or here.

This little bundle of goodies culled from everywhere and beyond brings back fine memories of the pure joy to be had imagining the possible terrors that were about to unfold—and appreciating the best thrills are all in the mind.
 
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More fabulous Karloff kovers, after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.17.2015
11:43 am
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Bloody Geography: Horror maps that detail what fright flicks were set in your home state
05.27.2015
09:42 am
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This week someone sent me this really cool map of the United States, in which an imgur user has placed visual representations of horror films set in each state. It’s quite a piece of work:
 

Click on image for larger version.
 
I did some searching to learn more about this map and the work that went into it, when I accidentally stumbled across THIS even more detailed, meticulously researched, map which lists around 250 horror films for all 50 states (and Washington, D.C.).
 

Click on image for larger version.
 
The host website horroronscreen.com clarifies:

The map represents where the stories take place in the movies, not where the actual filming locations were. Nowadays, most horror movies are filmed in California, but the setting could be totally different. For example, Halloween was filmed outside of Los Angeles but the movie is set in Illinois.

This is a true labor of love, and I actually learned about a couple of new movies when I checked out my own home state.

So peep both of these bloody good horror maps and let us know: What’s the scariest state?

Via Horroronscreen.com and Bloodydisgusting.com

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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05.27.2015
09:42 am
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‘Fear on Film’: Three masters of horror—Landis, Cronenberg, Carpenter all in the same interview
04.22.2015
12:17 pm
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If you were living in Los Angeles in the early 1980s, you might remember this interview which aired on that “magnificent obsession,” the legendary Z Channel, a local cable channel that catered to film nuts until its inevitable demise in 1989. The host here is Mick Garris, a renowned expert in the horror genre.

The early 1980s were such a great moment for the horror genre, and these three men were right at the center of it all. This interview was probably conducted in early 1982—Landis had recently come out with An American Werewolf in London, and was a year away from releasing the video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” which anyone who lived through the era will tell you was not just any ordinary music video—it was a 13-minute horror movie on the zombie theme, and both song and video featured a memorable vocal bridge by Vincent Price. Carpenter, of course, had kicked off the Halloween franchise in 1978, had recently come out with The Fog, and would release The Thing in the summer of 1982. Cronenberg, whose previous two features were Scanners and The Brood, was promoting Videodrome, which would come out in 1983, the same year as The Dead Zone. And that’s not even counting something like the first Evil Dead movie, which came out in 1981, or Alien, which came out in 1979. The Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises started in 1980 and 1984, respectively, and that same period saw a whole lot of Stephen King movies too, like Firestarter, Cujo, Creepshow, and Christine.

It’s a pretty interesting interview—Carpenter insists that movies don’t scare him but then admits that seeing It Came From Outer Space when he was 4 years old did scare him. Landis thinks that there’s been a change in horror movies—back in the day, the movies were fairly good but then the effect is ruined by the appearance of a shitty-looking monster; by 1981 the movies had gotten worse but the monsters actually look pretty convincing. The names Rick Baker and Roger Corman are bandied about liberally. Both Landis and Carpenter bemoan the need for entire days being spent to make a single effects-heavy shot. Cronenberg complains about censorship in Canada and points out several positive aspects of the U.S. system (this was taped before the introduction of PG-13, which precisely mirrors a suggestion made by Cornenberg). Cronenberg shows decent self-knowledge when he says, “My films tend to be very body-conscious”—an understatement, to say the least.

Above all, this is a great video if you are a big fan of brown jackets.
 

Posted by Martin Schneider
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04.22.2015
12:17 pm
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‘Tales from the Crypt’ starring the Cramps, 1980
04.07.2015
03:08 pm
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Given the Cramps’ love of trashy Americana and vintage monster movies—witness their adoption of Cleveland’s legendary schlock-horror TV host Ghoulardi—it perhaps isn’t so surprising to stumble across this fabulous photo spread they did for The Face in the July 1980 issue. Give The Face credit: The Cramps had been bouncing around for a while but their only LP to that point, Songs the Lord Taught Us, had come out in May. The pictures repurpose lines from the Cramps’ song “Voodoo Idol,” which didn’t even make it onto an album until a year later, when their I.R.S. debut Psychedelic Jungle came out. The cover of the issue had Bryan Ferry on it, and the same issue also had items on Ian Dury, John Cooper Clarke, Howard Devoto, and Linton Kwesi Johnson. Not bad.

The title of the photo essay (?) is “Tales from the Crypt,” which of course calls to mind the comic book series that inspired the band’s creeptastic logo. The photographs were by Alain de la Mata, who went on to produce some interesting movies a couple of decades after this shoot, and the series of pictures was “scripted and performed by the Cramps,” which is certainly an unusual credit. “The Underestimator,” whose Tumblr I spotted these on, speculates that these marvelous pics may have been taken during the “Garbageman” promo video shoot at the Shepperton film Studios, in Middlesex, UK.
 

(Click on the above image for a larger view.)
 

 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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04.07.2015
03:08 pm
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Stephen King: ‘I sleep with the lights on’
12.31.2014
02:35 pm
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I find it reassuring to know that Stephen King has sold over 350 million books—not because it’s a sales target young hopeful writers might choose to aspire to or because the earnings probably keep Mr. King in a lifestyle the vast majority of us can only ever dream of, but because this incredible number means that most of us have probably read at least one Stephen King novel or story—or at worst have seen one of the numerous films based on his work.

350 million in book sales make Stephen King an ice-breaker, a conversation starter, a shared interest that connects people with whom we may have thought there was no common bond. Unlike the pitfalls of talking about politics or religion or whether your team is going to win the league (of course they will!), talking about Stephen King, or rather talking about books, brings us together through a shared pleasure of reading.

I was late to Stephen King but quickly made up for the lost time and have now read everything he has ever published. And like the other 350 million I have remained one of his “Constant Readers” through all his seasons whether good or fair or poor.

I’ve often posited the suggestion that Stephen King should win the Nobel Prize for Literature, which may cause some to be aghast, but why not? He has created a gallery of memorable characters; has written some of the more imaginative stories of the past five decades; and perhaps most radically King’s tales of terror have encouraged people to read, which in turn has nudged his readers towards other authors, other books, other ideas. Who knows—maybe one day it will happen—and wouldn’t that be a positive endorsement of those 350 million + readers?

For a man who has terrorized many an imagination it may be comforting to hear that Mr. King himself sleeps with the lights on to keep monsters away, as he explains in this his first “up close and personal” TV interview with Henry Nevison for UMO (University of Maine Orono) in 1982.
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.31.2014
02:35 pm
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Vampire Lesbians of Hammer
12.27.2014
12:28 pm
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With all the hubbub about sexy vampires these days, courtesy of Twilight, True Blood and The Vampire Diaries, it’s time to take a short stroll down memory lane to the “golden age” of vampire lesbian cinema with Hammer’s so-called “Karnstein Trilogy.”

 

 
The first of the series, The Vampire Lovers, starred beautiful Polish actress Ingrid Pitt, who had previously played Elizabeth Bathory in Countess Dracula for Hammer. In The Vampire Lovers, Pitt played Carmilla Karnstein, the literary prototype for all vampire lesbians, a character created by author J. Sheridan Le Fanu in 1872. I saw the film on a late night “chiller theater” TV slot in the mid-seventies and while it’s actually a pretty decent, serviceable period piece horror film, uh, whatever... let’s get real here, the real attraction were the bare breasts of Ms. Pitt and crew! Without them no one would probably remember this film at all.

But ask any guy who grew up in the seventies —and a few gals, too, of course— who watched horror movies and they will know all about this film and its two sequels, which were often aired—astonishingly—with the nude scenes intact. Back in the seventies, this was a cause for celebration for teenage boys. I used to scour the TV Guide searching for weird things to watch and whenever there was a screening of one of these films, I can assure you that I didn’t have anything better to do that night!
 
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The second film in the Karnstein Trilogy was 1971’s Lust for a Vampire starring blond Danish hottie Yutte Stensgaard. Again, ask any middle-aged guy in America or England who watched horror films as a kid and… they will know the name Yutte Stensgaard, who is seen bare-breasted and smeared with blood in the film.
 
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A still from this scene made frequent appearances in monster movie books and magazines devoted to the genre, providing somewhat unwholesome masturbatory fodder for an entire generation of horror film geeks (Sidestepping the implications of this matter entirely, here Stensgaard is seen signing it at a fan convention).
 

 
More after the jump…

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.27.2014
12:28 pm
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Before there was ‘The Babadook,’ there was ‘Monster’ the ‘baby Babadook’
12.08.2014
01:01 pm
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There’s a reason why the critics and all your friends who’ve seen it are raving about the new horror movie, The Babadook: It’s because it’s really well-done and fucking scary. For the most part, I find horror films extremely uninteresting, but this one, about a young boy with a pop-up book from Hell, grabbed me immediately with its stylish sense of anxiety, claustrophobia and unease. It’s genuinely frightening and it doesn’t rely on the cliched tropes of “found video” that’s been getting old since The Blair Witch Project or sudden loud noises for its scares.

The 2014 Australian indie horror, written and directed by Jennifer Kent has a nearly perfect rating on Rotten Tomatoes and currently has a score of 87 out of 100 on Metacritic, which seems about right. Last week William Friedkin director of The Exorcist tweeted “Psycho, Alien, Diabolique, and now THE BABADOOK” adding “I’ve never seen a more terrifying film than THE BABADOOK. It will scare the hell out of you as it did me.” Stephen King tweeted “Deeply disturbing and highly recommended. You don’t watch it so much as experience it.” If you won’t take my word for it, take theirs.
 

 
The Babadook inhabits a place where the Zuni devil doll from Trilogy of Terror meets Roman Polanski’s The Tenant meets Mommy Dearest meets David Lynch meets Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves meets Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages meets Georges Méliès meets… Papa Lazarou from League of Gentlemen? I think you’ll know from that mouthful of a sentence whether or not The Babadook is the film for you. Six-year-old Noah Wiseman is a revelation in his role as the difficult son of an emotionally disturbed single mother and Essie Davis, as his mom, is simply terrific. Surely she’s going to find doors opening up to her in Hollywood, she’s great in this. It’s basically the two of them who carry the entire film.
 

 
I’m not going to spill any of the beans, it’s best to see it without knowing much more than this. What I do want to point out is that The Babadook‘s critically-lauded first time feature director Jennifer Kent, who did an apprenticeship with Danish director Lars von Trier on the set of his Dogville, made a short predecessor to The Babadook in 2005 called “Monster” which she refers to as a “baby Babadook.”
 

 
After the jump, ‘The Babadook’ trailer…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.08.2014
01:01 pm
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The bloody horror of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol
12.04.2014
12:47 pm
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Long before audiences paid to be thrilled by the horror of slasher movies, splatterpunk and “video nasties,” there was a theater in Paris that provided such grisly, bloody spectacle of the most extreme kind almost every night. Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was infamous for its horrifying productions of murder, torture and most gruesome death.

Grand-Guignol literally means “theater of the great puppet,” a reference to the venue’s early productions using puppetry similar to Punch and Judy shows. The theater was situated in the Pigalle district of the city in a converted old church, the interior of which still contained many of the building’s original religious features—confessionals converted into boxes, overlooked by statuary and gothic design—all of which created an eerie and nerve-tingling ambience.

If the interior thrilled, then the productions, mainly written by André de Lorde who wrote some 150 plays during his life, were guaranteed to deliver the most bloodthirsty and outrageous horror. De Lorde’s stories usually featured the criminally insane, the deranged or those under some kind of hypnotic trance that allowed him scope to depict the most horrifying deeds as these were the actions of the abnormal or the unhinged. Audiences flocked to see the shows, at times screaming out if the drama went too far. However, some have claimed that these shows allowed Parisians to feel something, anything, in a way their ordinary lives did not.

The Grand-Guignol was popular up until just after WWII when the real horror of the war brought a decline to the public’s taste for brutal, bloody fictions. These photographs, mainly from the late 1940s, give a great sense of the kind of spectacle that amazed theater-goers when they visited the Grand-Guignol.
 
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More from the theater of blood, after the jump….

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.04.2014
12:47 pm
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‘Graduation Day’: New Wave Slasher, 80s Style
10.10.2014
03:42 pm
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Poster Art for Graduation Day
 
Fewer sub-genres of horror are more maligned and critically sneered at than the Slasher Film. To the extent that in my academic past, I had not one but two teachers borderline horrified by my love for some of the films in this often grue-filled category. One of them actually said, “But Heather, you’re so sweet! How could you be into those movies?” If I hadn’t been the highly awkward and sheltered young person that I was back then, I could have responded with something about art exploring our darker impulses and tragic circumstances. Then, backed that up with historical references to the Grand Guignol theatre in France, some of Shakespeare’s bloodier works and any number of ancient Greek plays. Instead, I’m sure my response was something pithy like, “They’re cool.”
 
Targets for the Black Gloved Killer
 
As far as early 1980’s slashers go, Graduation Day is one cool movie. Made in 1981 by director Herb Freed, Graduation Day on the surface seems like your slasher-prototype. In a small California town,  the star runner on the high school track team, Laura (Ruth Ann Llorens), dies of natural causes immediately after winning the big race. A few months later, a black gloved killer start offing her teammates, even dramatically crossing their faces off with lipstick on a framed group photo. Naturally, there are red herrings. Could it be the Laura’s strange older sister, Anne (Patch Mackenzie)? Maybe the hard-bitten Coach Michaels (Christopher George) who leers at his female students a little too long? Even the nosy and possibly brain-damaged Officer MacGregor (Virgil Frye)? Or even Anne’s creepy, alcoholic stepfather who still hangs on to the grief of losing her younger sister?
 
There's a Killer on the Loose.
 
It could be any, all or none of the above and for a film like Graduation Day, I would hate to spoil which one it is. The film does play with certain conventions that were already veering towards cliché by ‘81, right down to an appearance by future epic scream queen Linnea Quigley as a cute and often topless stoner high school chick who seduces her teacher for a passing grade and attempts to have sex in the woods. (Granted, Linnea Quigley popping up is something that should really happen in every movie.) But scratch underneath the surface and you have a film with some fairly strong cynicism painted towards adults, brilliant quick-cut editing courtesy of Martin Jay Sadoff that brings to mind films like Fando y Lis and Easy Rider, a nifty twist-reveal ending and a killer appearance by the eternally underrated New Wave cult band Felony. (More on them in a minute.)
 
Linnea Quigley and friend getting stoned at the park.
 
The universe of Graduation Day is populated with teachers and authority figures that range from sleazy/borderline pedophile to abusive to bumbling but at least harmless. The latter includes a hilarious turn from the inimitable Michael Pataki as the ineffectual Principal clad in a polyester-pants nightmare. Pataki, who sadly passed away back in 2010, was one of those guys whose mere presence improved everything he was in, which ranged from voicing George Liquor in an episode of Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon to playing a homophobic biker in the gay motorcycle-gang film, The Pink Angels. Graduation Day is no exception and the film gets even better whenever he is on screen.
 
Best school dance band ever. Felony.
 
The aforementioned editing is incredibly creative and heightens the darkly strange tone of the film. Looking at Sadoff’s resume, it all makes sense when you realize he worked on the visually stunning 1971 underground erotic male tone poem, Pink Narcissus.

Another unlikely pairing that works greatly to the film’s advantage is the appearance by the band Felony. A Los Angeles based group whose ultra-charismatic lead singer, Jeffrey Scott Spry had previously played with Ron Asheton’s existent-for-a-hot-minute band The New Order back in the 70’s, Felony were and remain one of the quirkier rock bands that emerged out of the New Wave scene. Here, they perform their non-album song, “Gangster Rock,” looking like a bunch of gothed-out Mafiosos, their appearance is the absolute highlight in the whole film. It doesn’t matter that the song, which seems to be played in a continual loop, goes on for several minutes because it is so good that you barely notice. Even if you do, the odds of you minding are fairly slim. Felony would later on have a bit of a hit with their song “The Fanatic,” which was used on the soundtrack for the film, Valley Girl.
 

 
Graduation Day may not be a perfect film, with the last twenty minutes dragging a wee bit, but between the editing, a great cast, especially Pataki, George and Patch Mackenzie as the strong but subtly sensitive Anne and a willingness to explore a darker universe where kids are never truly safe, killer or no killer, it is a surprising treat of a movie. Previously available through Troma, it has been cleaned up quite nicely by the always reliable folks at Vinegar Syndrome, complete with multiple supplements to keep even the staunchest of horror film cineastes happy.
 

Posted by Heather Drain
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10.10.2014
03:42 pm
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‘ABCs of Death 2’: Gory, hilarious trailer with 26 ways to die, a different director for each letter
09.02.2014
03:59 pm
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I’m not a big fan of the whole “gore” genre. Although I do harbor a fondness for Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs and The Wizard of Gore—and hey, I even saw Joel M. Reed’s hilariously gruesome Bloodsucking Freaks in an old school Times Square grindhouse (shudder)—generally speaking, modern “torture porn” movies are not my idea of a thick shake (if you’ll pardon my obscure Bloodsucking Freaks reference). Those films are goofy, camp fun, but I don’t feel like I’m missing anything having not partaken of the Saw films…

I write this by way of telling you that I have no idea what possessed me to click on the publicist’s email this morning for the latest release from the mighty Drafthouse Films, the anthology film ABCs of Death 2. I’d have thought there was nothing there for me, but I watched it, I laughed out loud and now I cannot wait to see this sucker…

Featuring 26 directors, each exploring the theme of death a letter at a time, including The Mighty Boosh’s Julian Barratt, Juan of the Dead director Alejandro Brugués, Rodney Ascher director of Room 237, animator Bill Plympton , Vincenzo Natali (Cube), twin sister horror auteurs Jen and Sylvia Soska (Dead Hooker In A Trunk), Lancelot Imasuen (star of the Nollywood Babylon doc) and many others.

ABCs of Death 2 will have its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on opening night, September 18, in Austin, TX.  The film will be available on VOD on October 2 and in theaters on October 31.

This is seriously NSFW unless you work at a morgue… and seriously funny, too.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.02.2014
03:59 pm
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Hellraiser: The Macabre Art of Horror Master Clive Barker
01.17.2014
09:40 pm
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“I think of myself as somebody who is reporting from a world of dreams.”
-Clive Barker

Although primarily known as an author of dark fantasy, and as the creator of the “Hellraiser” and “Candyman” horror movie franchises, Clive Barker is also a prolific visual artist. Barker will often paint a character into existence before fleshing it out on the page:

“I’m painting these pictures in the expectation that… interesting, strange characters and landscapes will come into my mind and into my mind’s eye and appear on the canvas through the brush. There is something willfully strange about this process—that you stand back at the end of a night’s work and you look at something and you say, ‘Where did that come from?’ I mean, I’m not the only artist who does that - lots of artists do that, I know. And it’s been wonderful because if I had created Abarat from words—if I’d written Abarat and then illustrated it… it would not be anything like as rich or as complex or as contradictory a world as it is. Because this is a world which has been created from dream visions…  What I’m doing is finding stories that match the shape of my dreams.”

This weekend you can see the art of Clive Barker at LA Art at the Century Guild booth #1216 . You can pre-order the upcoming hardcover Clive Barker art book here.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Tara McGinley
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01.17.2014
09:40 pm
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It’s 1980’s trash-horror films a go-go with Bleeding Skull!
01.06.2014
11:13 am
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For those of us who grew up during the golden era of VHS, the shelves at the local Mom & Pop video store were the equivalent to visiting some king of gloriously mutated version of Disneyland. The beauty of that era was that because the format being new, all kinds of movies came out of the woodwork. Films like First Blood or E.T. had a great chance of playing in theaters ranging from the metropolitan to box-shaped bergs in the smallest of corn-town America. But what about titles like Psychos in Love, Death Spa or Black Devil Doll From Hell? Forget it, but that was the beauty of VHS is that it truly made the movie going experience more personal and democratic.
 

 
This was never more true than for the horror genre, with the 1980’s being the apex decade for some of the most lurid, grue-filled, nudity-ridden and straight up crazy films in the field. Thanks to the fine folks at Headpress, there is a funhouse ride of a book dedicated to these films. The tome in question? Bleeding Skull: A 1980’s Trash-Horror Odyssey. Originally a website started back in 2004 by Joseph A. Ziemba, who was later joined by Dan Budnik, Bleeding Skull, both as a website and book, is a compendium of all the horror films that more academically minded or overall discerning writers would quickly bolt from. This is, naturally, a highly positive thing!

That fact alone makes Bleeding Skull worth noting, but the added bonus is how entertaining both Ziemba and Budnik are to read. They both have the whole “snark with love” vibe down to a fine art. There are some incredibly funny lines in this book, but they never override the overall reviews. There’s a sensibility to the whole thing of a guy sitting next to you at a bar,  telling you about this weird movie that he just saw that was directed by the guy that made The Giant Spider Invasion and stars Tiny Tim as a sweaty and depressed clown named “The Magnificent Mervo.” (The film in question, by the way, is Blood Harvest. and yes, it exists. Glory.) Who else is going to talk about obscure, made in Wisconsin horror films with Tiny Tim as a clown in them? Not many but that right there captures the essence of Bleeding Skull.
 
Bleeding Skull Book Cover
 
Another impressive thing about this book is that Ziemba and Budnik have truly combed the depths of ultra-obscure horror films for your enjoyment. This was an area of film that before reading this book, I was fairly confident that I knew more than the average bear. Which, while I still do, compared to these guys, I AM the average bear. If it was a no-budget, shot-on-video one day wonder from two guys in Duluth, Minnesota, then dollars to donuts, it is written about in this book!

Headpress continues to cement their already solid reputation as one of the finest purveyors of fringe culture with Bleeding Skull. So crack open your favorite libation, dust off your VCR that’s been gathering dust in your attic and be prepared to read about some of the best, worst, trashiest, sleaziest and gonzo trash-horror films from one of the darkest decades in cinematic history.

Below, for your viewing pleasure (?) Blood Harvest starring Tiny Tim as “Mervo the Clown”:
 

Posted by Heather Drain
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01.06.2014
11:13 am
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Color me blood red: Supermarket chain sells gruesome horror movie coloring-book to kids
07.03.2013
10:07 am
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A horror movie coloring-book aimed at “good colourer-inners (as well as beginners)” has been withdrawn from the website of British supermarket chain Tesco. The company, which is called “Fresh and Easy” in America, is “the second-largest retailer, measured by profits, in the world.”

The book, Colour Me Good: Arrggghhhh!!, promises “really scary stuff” and “more blood than you can shake a dagger at,” and depicts scenes from such classic horror films as Psycho, The Shining, A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Clockwork Orange and Carrie.

Tesco was apparently selling Colour Me Good: Arrggghhhh!! as suitable for children ages five-to-eight, which led to criticism and the book’s subsequent withdrawal. Tesco claimed the book had been placed on its website by a third party retailer. A spokesperson for the company said:

“We have very clear guidelines for third-party sellers who list items on our website, and are sorry that on this occasion they weren’t followed.

“We will be speaking with the seller to remind them of the importance of selecting the right category when listing products with us.”

The book’s publisher, Mel Elliott of I Love Mel told the Daily Telegraph:

“Firstly, and most importantly, my products are not aimed at kids. They are a contemporary, pop-culture inspired range that are aimed at playful grown-ups.

“I was unaware that Tesco were a stockist as a separate distribution company deal with wholesale of my products.

“The front cover of ‘Colour Me Good Arrggghhhh!!’ features a drawing from the horror movie, ‘Psycho’ in which a woman is stabbed to death in the shower. I believe that this one image is a fairly large clue that this is not a book aimed at children. However, it does state on Tesco’s website that my products are aimed at five to eight year olds, which is an error on their part.”

The product has now been removed from Tesco’s website.

Colour Me Good: Arrggghhhh!! is still available from I Love Mel (where you can view all of the coloring-in pages), or from Amazon.
 
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Via ‘Daily Telegraph’ and ‘I Love Mel
 
More of ‘Arrggghhhh! Colour Me Good,’ after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.03.2013
10:07 am
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