the Witch with the Flying Head (1977)

Put this in perspective: you're having an evening stroll through your village and suddenly a floating head with it's intestines dangling beneath appears. A type of Eastern Vampire which prefers the blood of new born babies, but will settle for what it can get. Can you imagine a more bizarre sight? Discovering such a thing whether it be through folklore or pop culture is a joyous event. I've seen many a'creature feature in my day but three years ago when finally saw the Indonesian classic Mystics in Bali, my life would change forever. Not only is it an epic horror gem in it's own right, but it it also introduced me to this rare and beautiful creature. I did some research and found out that it's origin is of Malaysian folklore, in it's original language the creature is called "Penanggalan" which means "to detach". There are other variations as the legend spread to other countries, in Indonesia it's called "Leak" after the black magic that is required to invoke the beast. I discovered that there are dozens of East Asian horror movies featuring the Penanggalan, many of which are still being made today, most of which are impossible to find here in the States unless you have some good trade connections or know where to order them over seas. In my hunt I came across one of the only other semi-findable Penanggalan films, the 1977 Chinese movie, The Witch with the Flying Head (Fei taugh mo neuih).

That's right. The Witch with the Flying Head. It doesn't get much more straight forward than that! It's this kind of straight-froward-ness that I respect from an otherwise incomprehensible movie. I might also add before delving into this that reviewing a foreign movie with no subtitles isn't easy, so bear with me.

A Wicked Warlock of sorts stumbles upon a group of women and I presume wants to possess or maybe just wants to fuck with.. He makes a snake appear and it promptly crawls into the vagina of the prettiest girl. Writhing in pain, her sisters (I assume) try to help her but nothing can stop the intense pain. Mr. Warlock approaches with the solution! If she takes the potion he has for her it will stop the pain and she will be healed. They seem a bit apprehensive, and rightfully so. The potion was the final element in completing his spell.

She's momentarily relieved but will spend most of the next few days vomiting up snakes.

See? Snakes squirming about her gutty works.

Yucko!














After this little episode she is finally a fully developed Penanggalan. At night her head detaches from her body and she hunts for human blood with a really goofy looking set of under-bite fangs. Expect lots of killing in this one! You get to see her wrath over and over for a good half of the movie. The plot started to lose me a bit in the middle when she meets a man who seems to be ok with her "disability" and marries him. Some time passes without any problems. She gets pregnant and has a baby, this brings back her lust for blood. Remember, Penanggalans especially love new born baby blood! One of her sisters sacrifices herself to save the baby. Cut to awkward funeral scene. Curse or no curse, I think at this point I start to resent her and want to be FAR FAR AWAY! The end gets really jumbled as the evil Warlock comes back with his band of serpent cronies and lots of emotional stuff that doesn't translate well with the whole "no-subtitle" thing. In the end we are left with a KICK ASS battle between our lady Penanggalan and the Warlock serpent guy.

Serpent Warlock strangling Penanggalan.


This film may not be for everyone's taste. Few people have the patience to see what a subtitle-less film has to offer. I honestly think this one has a lot to offer. I was kept pretty thoroughly entertained throughout most of the movie. It doesn't quite measure up to Mystics in Bali but I didn't expect it to. It's a nice, solid little Chinese monster weirdy and if you are interested in seeing it feel free to check out my trade list  and contact me. ESPECIALLY if you know where I can get other Penanggalan movies, as of now this and Mystics are all I have. So my big quandary is; why are Penanggalan movies so hard to come by in America? More so, why aren't they being made here?! It's a tradition I think should carry on to Countries outside of Asia. How many carbon copy zombie movies do I have to see before I get ONE homegrown Penanggalan?! For now, they'll just have to live in my dreams with unicorns and gryphons.

Until next time, stay cool and for your own sake, keep the snakes out of your vagina!

End of the Month Mini-Reviews

I've been sick this past week with a yucky summer cold. I usually like to write blogs late at night so my high doses of Robitussin has kept me from being conscious during my peak writing hours. Not to mention the general crappiness I've felt. So I'm tardy on a few reviews I've been wanting to do. Rather than devote whole blogs on some of the great movies I've watched recently, I think I'm just going to summarize the highlights of the June.


I'm sure if you live near a Movie Gallery or Hollywood Video you know that (not so) sadly they're going out of business. I have mixed feelings about this. I was partially disappointed because in this area they are literally the last rental places around. Our Mom and Pop shops have almost completely disappeared so if I ever wanted to see something I didn't want to buy (or wait for an available slot on my Netflix que) I'd just pop into Movie Gallery on my way to the grocery store. On the other hand I often bitched about Movie Gallery. They were insanely over priced and had mostly terrible new movies that didn't interest me. Renting three movies costs somewhere around $20. I always felt ripped off and annoyed at the smug employees. Yet I still went about once a month. I guess I just felt sentimental about going to a store, browsing at all of my options and inevitably compromising my standards to rent something almost at cost. Netflix has been a life saver with it's endless options but the aesthetics of a shop full of movies can't be replaced by that jovial red envelope. But on the other hand, places like Movie Gallery couldn't evolve with the advancing technology so they were doomed to fail. Being an opportunist and also having a nasty addiction for buying movies, I've been taking advantage of their going out of business sale. I THOUGHT they had mostly shitty movies but with prices between $2-$6 you start to notice things you might not have before.

I finally saw the classic Jack Hill Blaxploitation movie, Foxy Brown. I only recently have made a special effort to get into the genre, this one really stands out as one of the best. It's so over the top and she's incredibly sexy! Everything about this movie is a perfect example of what it SHOULD be. I also saw Shaft for the first time. File both under "should have seen before now". I liked it a lot but not much could measure up to Foxy Brown and her infinite coolness. I also saw the Jamaican masterpiece The Harder They Come, which I guess also counts as blaxploitation though it plays out to me more like a foreign film. I always love seeing foreign cities in the 60's and 70's. Though I'm sure I've seen movies set in Jamaica, I'd never really seen a Jamaican movie as far as I know. The locations were interesting and the story was exciting and gritty. I always found out that it's almost single handedly responsible for bringing Ska, Rocksteady and Reggae to America. I thought the clips from Django and Jimmy Cliff's finale being an homage to those scenes was a really nice touch. I saw the 1977 version of the Sentinel which I quite enjoyed. It reminded me of Rosemary's Baby though I read that it was supposedly inspired by the Exorcist. I love anything with Burgess Meredith. I especially love the roles he played in the 70's. Old and absent minded, as apposed to his earlier roles where he's young and absent minded. Even more so than the Sentinel, I was enamoured by Don't Look Now. An emotional thriller written by Daphne Du Maurier. A brilliantly paced movie with a truly horrific ending. Beware though: LOTS of naked Donald Sutherland. I saw another underrated horror masterpiece called Of Unknown Origin directed by George P. Cosmatos. Peter Weller vs. a giant-fucking-rat! One of the coolest rat movies I've ever seen, and I'm pretty fond of the genre. Usually I find myself sympathizing with the rats since I used to own some rodent cuties. This rat however was anti-cute! Very slimey and creepy. One of the best creature feature of the month was the Howling 3: the Marsupials. Still trying to find any ozploitation available to me, I came across a cheap copy used at FYE and knew it must be mine. I'm not sure what was my favorite, the clip from "It Came from Uranus" or the creepy birth of the kangaroo were-baby.

I've never seen the second or any of the other Howling films, but I liked it much more than the first. In all it's cheesy glory!




So I finally saw Showgirls. I had seen it edited for TBS with half the movie cut out and animated bras overlayed on their bodies. I thought it was absurd and pretty entertaining. Like I said, $2 movies make you do strange things. I had the sudden urge to OWN Showgirls. As soon as the thought entered my head I couldn't NOT buy it. I thought it might not be as funny with an NC-17 rating. I was wrong. Oh how I was wrong. Seeing Jessie Spano flopping around like a dead fish mid-coitus was one of the greater moments of my life. It really is an epic disasterpiece of embarrassing proportions. It's Golden Raspberry award was well deserved!

The best movie I saw this month was Sammo Hung's Encounter of the Spooky Kind.
 

I love the way the Hong Kongers make black magic movies! This one combines horror, comedy and kung-fu flawlessly! King of Shaw Brothers-esque. Apparently he re-invented the vampire/kung-fu genre which had been done in the past but really gained popularity in the 80's. His comical fight choreography is unparalleled. I ended up watching this movie twice. It's just the kind of outrageous spookfest I love to see and NEED to see more of!

Ok, that's all for now! It's late and I still haven't fully recovered. Time for sleeps!

Trade List

Here's my list of movies for trade. I figured I might as well go ahead and post it here for anyone who might be interested in doing a swap. I also sell some of them for a living (can't technically sell the ones that are in print). Check out my Ioffer shop to see what's listed as of now.  I'll update this list and link back to it periodically. Also, as I write reviews for some of these movies I'll try and link those too.

Fell free to leave comments with questions or email me at Papermothra@yahoo.com

Clicky Von Linky...

Blue Sunshine & Patrick

I've always had a penchant for baldness. That would explain my crush on Terry O'quinn circa ALWAYS. I seem to gravitate toward bald characters in movies. I especially love baldness in women! I'm still pining over the hard to find trashterpiece, Bald Headed Betty. Today's feature's initial attraction was the incredible ominous cover featuring a beautiful bald woman soaked in somber blue rays. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Blue Sunshine. Sometimes I do endless research before watching a movie, other times I like to go into it blind.

A ten year delayed reaction to a bad batch of acid leads a group of well adjusted citizens to have the suckiest kind of flashback. The kind that leads to murder, mayhem and baldness. When one of these post-hippies flips out at a party and kills everyone (in turn, getting hit by a truck and being killed himself), the one survivor (cult actor Zalman King who bears a striking resemblance to Sean Penn!) is framed for the murders. He starts to realize that his predicament is related so some other murders and begins putting the pieces together to prove his innocence.

This being 1976, LSD had pretty much gone out of style. Most of our free love youngsters were now well into adulthood having hung up their peace pipes for polyester suits. It was the dawn of the disco era and closing in on the 80's was going to mean the end of drugsploitation movies of this nature. It had been years since a decent acid movie had been made. In this respect Blue Sunshine really is an under appreciated gem. Not only is it unique to it's decade but it's exploits the "dangers" of psychedelics better than pretty much any movie I've ever seen. It's a scary concept! The feel of this movie immediately reminded me of David Cronenberg, particularly the Brood and They Came from Within. It was directed by Jeff Lieberman who also made Squirm (1976), Just Before Dawn (1981), Remote Control (1988) and more recently Satan's Little Helper (2004).

The final outburst by a giant patchy bodyguard Frankenstein guy in the middle of a disco makes me smile. Did I mention there was baldness?

I ended up watching the marvelous new documentary on Ozploitation (Aussieploitation) Not Quite Hollywood. I was pretty much blown away and completely humbled by this whole world of bad assery I basically didn't even know existed. There was only a hand full of movies I had even heard of let alone scene. After the movie ended I'd immediately ran to the computer and started typing in memorable titles only to realize WHY I hadn't heard of them. A shitload have not made it to dvd in the US! Talk about a bummer! I decided to check out FYE today and see if I could dig anything up. I wasn't unsuccessful, I found several of the more well known Aussie flicks. I decided to start with the one I'd been putting off for years. Everyone's favorite telekinetic coma victim, Patrick.

I can see why this is considered a classic. It's well made and has moments of sheer brilliance (IE: when the doctor is eating the frog) but I'd be lying if I said it didn't leave something to be desired. I thought the pacing was a bit slow with long scenes of dryness. We don't really watch genre films to sit idly for gaps of time. I was most impressed by Robert Thompson who plays Patrick. Being the title character it would make sense that he steals the show but then again he still has no speaking parts. His look is incredibly intense and it was his intensity that carries the whole film. It was directed by Richard Franklin who's a genre film house name having made Fantasm (1976), Road Games (1981), Psycho II (1983) and Cloak and Dagger (1984).

This was obviously an influential movie. Now that I've seen it I can tell that it must have been a big inspiration for Lucio Fulci's Aenigma (1987). Which I happen to love but always read bad things about, mainly that it's a rip-off of Carrie (1976), but If it's a rip-off of anything my vote is on Patrick. This wouldn't have been the only time the Italians ripped off Patrick. On Not Quite Hollywood they show clips from an unofficial sequel called Patrick Viva Ancora aka Patrick Still Lives (1980). It supposed to be terrible but I thought it looked fantastic! As a general rule I find that poorly and cheaply made sequels are often times more fun than the originals. I can't wait to track down a copy of that.

Maybe after all of the excitement of discovering a genre that is new to me and having been curious about this movie for six or seven years I wasn't mentally prepared for what the film actually would be. It has it's moment of trashy goodness but overall it's a very serious psychological thriller. It really is a good movie, perhaps not one of my favorites, but I'm glad I've finally seen it.

When Women Had Giant Mutant Sheep Embryos

While preparing for a move across the County I've been trying get through some of these randoms I've accumulated. Just to filter out a few impulse buys and watch a few of the movies I have on loan from friends so they can be enjoyed and returned. Yesterday I watched an incredible piece of Italian schlock, the 1972 film When Women Lost Their Tails. I found it as a budget release of two Senta Berger movies (the other being Blitz which I haven't gotten around to yet) at a local used dvd shop and thought the title sounded sufficiently wonderful.

It ended up exceeding my expectations. It turned out to be a tongue in cheek sex comedy set in the stone age. Senta Berger plays a sexy cave girl who's the belonging of a group of five cave stooges. One of which is played by Italian cult actor Frank Wolff. I didn't expect this movie to be as funny as it turned out to be. A new, smarter cave man moves into the area and tricks the dim witted neanderthals into using a money systems with rocks, he swindles them out of work, food and of course sex kitten, Senta Berger. The dialogue was surprisingly witty, it's fun seeing these characters fumble around to build themselves a little society. The gay cave man was especially charming. The punchline at the end of the movie is that Berger is liberated through prostitution! Not a movie for those sensitive to misogyny but worth a look to anyone with a sense of humor. My favorite thing about this movie were the sets and music. It was like a Flintstone cartoon come to life. Completely over the top! It reminded of how the sets looked in Robinson Crusoe on Mars. The score was done by none other than one of my all time favorite composers Bruno Nicolai, although it was basically the same theme and incidental music through out the whole film it's still fun and catchy!

After I watched the movie I of course looked it up the internet, the poster I came across struck a nerve. I suddenly had this crazy deja vu from seeing this poster as a kid and being completely intrigued by it. I'm not positive where I saw it but my best bet would be this book of 1970's film posters my Mom got for me when I was in the 6th grade. I remember seeing her looking all savage and ravishing bound by chains, I remember the title being very odd to me and the text seeming out of place but in a good way. I remember think she had a lot of hair and wondering what the hell this movie could be about. I assumed it was some weird western. I couldn't imagine a time women ever had tails so none of it made any sense to me! This memory has made me feel a bit sentimental over finally seeing this movie. I'm so happy it found me!

The other movie has been bouncing around my mind all week. The reviled and ignored creature feature, Godmonster of Indian Flats. Reading some other reviews online was a bit disappointing for me. A lot of people seem to really hate this movie. I don't get it, what did they expect? I went into this with extremely low expectations and immediately noticed it wasn't just any run of the mill Something Weird movie. After a few flicks like Bowanga Bowanga and Sinderella and the Golden Bra you learn that they can't all be winners. The style of film making reminded me of Russ Meyer. The cuts were clever and funny. The acting was the kind of "good-bad" acting you want from a movie like this - intentional almost. It also had Meyers alumni, Stuart Lancaster as the racist town Mayor. At one point I wondered if Russ Meyer might have directed this under a pseudonym. He didn't of course, but if he made a movie with no boobs, mutant sheep and an even more limited budget and time frame, I could see this being apart of his filmography. The "no boobs" should have been the give away, ha!


The story revolves around a historic old west town in Nevada. After being drunk and beaten, a sheep farmers has a psychedelic experience in his barn with floating yellow sheep. When he comes-to he sees that a giant bloody embryo has been born. He tells a scientist who's doing experiments on the strange phosphorescent gasses in the area and they begin to study it. It grows up to be a giant 8 foot mutant sheep. Isn't that wonderful?!

The Godmonster isn't even my favorite thing about this movie. It's the over all feel and production quality. Not to say that the production quality is high, but it's nice and grainy which works beautifully with the gorgeous location and the director's artistic vision. On the dvd you can expect Something Weird's usual awesome special features, including an AMAZING music video for a song called "Don't Fart Around with Love" from another movie by the same director. It reminded me of something from Forbidden Zone! I did some research and discovered the director, Fredric Hobbs was an artist and experimental filmmaker. He made three other movies, Troika (1969), Roseland (1971) and Alabama's Ghost (1973). I haven't been able to find out much about the first but Roseland (the movie that feature's "Don't Fart Around with Love") and Alabama's Ghost both have a small cult following. I plan on getting them both very soon. You can order Roseland from Something Weird's website click HERE, you can also view the trailer on that page. Alabama's Ghost is a little more difficult to track down. . In the meantime there are a few wacky clips from that crazed blaxploitation horror movie on Youtube if you care to check it out.

Until next time!!

Blind Beast

When you watch as many movies as I do you tend to get bored easily. I think my compulsive movie watching is partially the result of Adult A.D.D. I'm always hoping to find something new and exciting. I become obsessed with and then burn myself out on themes. I did it with horror for a while, I spent so many years obsessing over all of these different facets of the genre that I found myself hardly able to watch any horror movies for two years or so. When I did catch one I couldn't muster up the passion for them I once felt. I'm pretty much over that now, but I'm still guilty of burning myself out on something. I also did this with sex movies. Watching tons of Euro-sleaze can get old after a while. You know you're over doing it when Pasolini's Salo: 120 Days of Sodom isn't even shocking anymore, just boring. Don't even get me started on Something Weird's brand of  nudie film. After a few Doris Wishman nudist camp movies it's enough to make you never want to see a naked body on film or IN LIFE ever again! So I cooled it on the perverted stuff for a while. Sex can be a pretty boring subject matter for film anyway. It has to be something really special to stand out. Like Russ Meyer for instance. Now there's a guy who can be make a sexy, campy, and artistic film. Even still, I find myself yawning at sex scenes that last longer than a minute. Whole movies revolving around the subject? I still have my doubts. However today's feature surprised me in the most delightful of ways. I finally got around to seeing Yasuzo Masamura's Blind Beast.

I'd been curious about it ever since it's release a few years ago. It was put out by Fantomas, who I've always been pleased with in the past. They tend to deliver on great offbeat movies with cool packaging and decent special features. After several years of this bouncing around my Netflix que I finally made the leap.

The story follows an attractive young model who's stalked and kidnapped by a blind sculptor who has become fixated on her exquisite physique by feeling up a sculpture of her at a museum. He decided he must have her to model for one his masterpiece, even if by force. He locks her up in his amazing studio which is comprised of wall to wall sculptures and installations of giant bizarre body parts. Although this subject should be revolting and offensive Masamura delivers a very sensitive and erotic manner of telling this sad and beautiful story. Naturally Aki protests and tries to escape, but inevitably she becomes sucked  in to the self destructive abyss and falls for her captor.

The images and ideas in this movie effected me profoundly. I've seen a lot of debauchery in my day, but this one was different. I felt somewhat naive watching. As if I was seeing something new. It's hard to believe this movie is 41 years old. There were moments I was frightened b what I was seeing and there were times I was magnetically entranced. I found myself loving and hating all of the characters at some point through the duration of the movie. The subject matter got pretty ugly towards the end and despite it's dismal ambiance I left the movie feeling peaceful and satisfied. The narration by Aki (Mako Midori) helped with that. It wasn't just a story of a woman kidnapped, raped and inevitably...worse. Her voice over gives the viewer peace of mind that she's not as out of control as she may seem at first glance. In the end, they were all perverts! And I love it!

It was based on a story by the famous Japanese writer Edogawa Rampo from which many film adaptations of his work have been made. I plan on seeing more of those. Also, the wonderful Yasuzo Masamura. Before this I'd only seen one of his earlier films, Giants and Toys. A WONDERFUL, yet completely different movie! I can hardly believe they were made by the same guy! You can bet I'll be cruising his filmography pretty fiercely as well!

I'M BACK!

Have you missed me my children?

I was thinking about starting a new blog. Nothing wrong with this one, but I have neglect issues with sites I've been estranged to. If a certain amount of time has elapsed I feel like I'm not wanted here anymore. Silly though, I'd probably just end up doing the same thing to the next blog. So I'm going to write off my absence and try to start fresh here. My problem is my attention span. I take in too many interests. For several months I wasn't as interested in watching movies, I mostly spent my time painting, making jewelry, collaging and writing in my hand journal. I finished a big commission piece a few weeks ago and have felt at a loss for inspiration to start a new painting. Maybe not "inspiration" but "motivation". My jewelry making hobby is still there but it's not exactly consuming. Slowly over the course of the past few months I've been watching more and more movies again. Not as artistically fulfilling but movies are such a huge part of who I am that it's fulfilling in another way. Thinking about them, obsessing over them, writing about them, researching them has always been a large factor in my life. It's sort of comforting to come back to it. Not to say I didn't still watch movies when I was painting and making jewelry non-stop, but I watched them in small doses. Like a normal person, ha! Not 2-5 a day, which is a luxury of my "line of business" (selling them).

Anyway, I've been feeling major itch to start reviewing again. I was looking at my old myspace review page where literally years upon years of reviews are stock piled. It made me nostalgic, I don't have much to look back on in that way from this past year, except for the little bit here on this blog. So it doesn't really make sense to start a different one just because I have cultural A.D.D. it's happened before and it will probably happen again but for now this blog has been reinstated so I'll press on with whatever I can come up with. I've even been considering doing Endless Fall again.

So stay tuned for reviews, unicorn magic, ghost cats, bubbling cauldrons, flying turtles and fun with wizards.

Gamey Egg Musk

I've always considered myself relatively fearless when it came to food. I've had an interest in cultures outside of my own since I was a little kid. I feel a sense of mystique and wonderment when I see foreign text and Asian characters. This curiosity has taken me from through many phases, primarily always bringing me back to the Orient. Another factor in that is my feeble little hometown which has almost nothing going for it, does have a military base, and where there's a Military base, there LOTS of Asian people, where there are Asian people there are Asian markets. You'll find several hole-in-the-walls here and there in the dingy side of town, but there has always been only one that has me as a regular patron. The Ocean Oriental Market. It's small (though still substantially larger than the said 'holes-in-the-wall') but has had a faithful customer base for years and they really try to cater to all of your Oriental needs. Everything from a particular brand of pickled squid, a variety of spices and sauces from Mongolia to Indonesia and everything (ok, maybe not EVERYTHING) in between. A vast spectrum of Chinese vhs rentals to Vietnamese Cha Cha music. They've aided me when I was sick with holistic medicine and cheered up when I was down with their extensive sweet treats, I usually go for something basic like strawberry Yan Yan or fresh Lychee fruit if it's in season. I've also sustained myself during periods of extreme brokeness by defaulting to the traditional Asian ramen packs. I'm not talking about that shit from your local grocery store that's "chicken", "beef", or "shrimp" flavored. I'm talking about a veritable hodgepodge of rice, wheat or potato noodles coming in all different sizes and textures, with oils, sauce packs and dried vegetable. My favorite is this crab flavored phnompenh styled clear potato noodle soup with these pretty little pink swirly things in them, costing just mere cents more than the domestic crap! I realized today that I've been shopping there for 9 years, closing in on a decade really makes you think! I've made a lot of blind buys over the years, many of which have become apart of my regular consumption, but there have been MANY things that I would sooner commit myself to boring American food
Hell forever than try again. Which brings me to today's experiment...

Century Eggs aka Thousand Year Old Eggs!!!



Ok, so they aren't REALLY a thousand years old, but after trying them you'll swear they are. Apparently it's a way of preserving duck eggs with clay and ash. Though I love duck, I'm no expert on duck eggs. So I'm not sure if they're black anyways or if that is the result of Centurifying them, but as you can see...they .. are .. BLACK! Well actually, they're black to the naked eye. If you hold it up to the light you can see that it's really more of a dark translucent brown. The yolk is a grayish green that just screams "DO NOT EAT!". Did that stop me? Of course not, I cut it in half and promptly put the gelatinous oval monolith mystery in my mouth. Talk about a rude awakening! I can usually choke something down, but that grey yolk was too much even for me. I HAD to spit it out! The best word I can find to describe it is simply "musk", then add the fact that it's an aborted duck fetus. GAMEY EGG MUSK. The texture was different from chicken yolk, smooth like bean paste. Associating it with a duck's body wasn't helping much either. I may be experimental with food but I draw the line at bodily functions, which I suppose technically an all eggs are, but not until I experienced this funky-funky doo-doo, did I think of it that way. But I couldn't waste it! I bought a pack of six and I was having hard time choking down the one. I de-yolked it then had a stroke of genius! Malt vinegar. I'm one of those people who will eat anything pickled and savors the tart goodness, sopping balsamic up with bread or whatever else will hold it. I went through a period where I was cutting up an hard boiled egg and dowsing it with malt vinegar as a snack. The yolk was a lost cause but the vinegar made the egg-blacks edible. Will I ever buy Century Eggs again? Hell No! But I can cross that off my list of Ocean Oriental Market Curiosities and now I have five new party favors for some unlucky guests who accept my next dinner invitation :-D



ps... as you can see, the shells are all cool and speckled so I think I shall incorporate
them into some kind of crafty endeavor

Schlocktober Top 10!

To make up for my lack of reviewing in October I thought I'd celebrate getting back to my regularly scheduled programming by honoring my neglected tradition of doing monthly top 10 reviews. Back in 2006 I started writing down every movie I watch. Separated by monthly columns I number them and mark them with an asterisk if it's a first-time-view. Out of those first-times-views, I compose a top 10. I list them as best as I can in order of enjoyment, obviously number 1 would be my favorite. This doesn't necessarily mean it's traditionally "the best". I'm an unconventional critic and opinions are relative. So without further adieu, here is my Top 10 for October 2009.



1. Hausu (1977)




If movies had souls, this movie would be my soul mate. This movie brings a new meaning to the phrase "now I've seen EVERYTHING!". When you watch as much as I do you sometimes wonder if you've reached the epitome of weirdness. This movie convinced me that there will always be something else, something that goes above and beyond. Simply put, this is a haunted house movie, but so so much more! The story revolves around seven girls who go to one of their Aunt's house for vacation. The plot is relatively insignificant, immediately bizarre things start to happen and the girl are killed in more and more insane ways. It was made by experimental Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi who got his start directing television commercials (if you want to see a really funny example of this, do a youtube search for "Charles Bronson Mandom"). You can really see the influence as the movie itself is one giant, flashy, quick-edited, commercial for total BEDLAM! I read a review where someone said it's as if Beetlejuice were directed by Dario Argento, only it's SO MUCH BETTER! I would sooner compare it to the bastard child of Holy Mountain and the Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters. This is the kind of movie that makes you wonder why the film industry didn't come to a complete halt because it just doesn't get any better. Describing the movie is nearly impossible, reviewing it is just my tripping over endless compliments. So if you trust me and want to have a visually maddening mind fuck of an experience, find yourself a copy of this life changing movie.



2. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)


I'm ashamed to say how long I went without seeing this. I'm a big fan of both Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. The movie revolves around two sisters who were formerly in show business. One, a crazed washed up child star (Davis), the other handicapped ex-movie star (Crawford) who's tormented and completely at the mercy of her insane sibling. Victor Buono gave a truly outstanding performance as well. I'm only used to him as King Tut from the Batman series from 1966. Robert Aldrich directed it, he later direct Davis and Buono again in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.



3. Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)



Finally, my first encounter with the diabolical Dr. Mabuse. Often cited as the first super villain, Mabuse uses his powers of hypnosis and mind control to wreak havoc and destruction from behind padded walls and even beyond the grave. This Fritz Lang classic was the second out of three, but was later followed by many semi-sequels directed by other people. This is considered the last hurrah from German Expressionism.



4. Frenzy (1972)



I always liked him, but lately I've really been diving into Alfred Hitchcock's vast body of work. I recently got a set of his early movies, I also received the Hitchcock/Truffaut book for my birthday. After having seen Family Plot earlier this year (which I quite enjoyed despite it's reputation), I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. A guy is running around raping and strangling women with neckties in London. The guy being framed is down on his luck having just lost his job, apartment and is in an over-all shitty mood. When his ex-wife becomes one of the victims he becomes the prime suspect. It's filled with Hitchcock's quirky sense of humor. I particularly loved the banter between the inspector and his wife as she's serving him these elaborate meals that he hates. Great stuff!




5. the Unknown (1927)



the world silent film is almost completely untouched by me. I'm slowly trying to work my way through the history of film. Silent pictures have always seemed like a big hurdle for me, mainly because I didn't know where to start. In my research I started to become fascinated with Lon Chaney Senior. He was really an amazing person, both of his parents were deaf so he was a natural at acting in a silent film. The Unknown is about an armless knife thrower at a circus who's in love with his lovely assisstant (a very young Joan Crawford), who is afraid of the touch of a man. Naturally they'd be a perfect couple right? Well, as it turns out he really does have arms, he conceals them in a girdle because he's a wanted man and has a strange deformity , two thumbs on one hand! This horror classic just gets weirder and weirder!


6. the Invisible Man (1933)



Not sure why I put off watch this for so long. I probably didn't take into account how much fun it would be to see an invisible person do all sorts of things. Smoking a cigarette, throwing things, acting like a ghost. Claude Rains really made this role his own, considering you never actually see him act! This has easily earned him the title of my favorite Universal Monster!




7. Tales from the Crypt (1972)/ Vault of Horror (1973)



Ok, so they're two different movies. They're based from basically the same comic, they're both Amicus Anthologies, they were made back to back, and they just go together! Plus, I don't think I could choose between them! Tales from the Crypt stars Joan Collins, Ralph Richardson, Roy Dotrice and Peter Cushing. Five people enter a tomb for seemingly unknown reasons and one by one are told their stories by the Crypt Keeper (Ralph Richardson). In Vault of Horror (aka "Further Tales from the Crypt") five men enter an elevator that takes them to the basement where imbibements are ready for them, they get comfortable, eat , drink and slowly begin to tell of their "nightmares", horrible things they've done, or have been done to them. The Terry Thomas episode was really fun and brought some comic relief in. Buy the double disc! See them both!



8. Sisters (1973)



Brian DePalma's homage to Alfred Hitchcock. After a pair of siamese twins are separated, strange things begin to happen. Before the film's release DePalma was using different themes from different Hitchcock movies. Marnie, Rear Window, etc... Until it was suggested to him that he should just get Bernard Hermann to score the film! So he did and it works beautifully. I was really impressed with William Finley in this movie. After seeing him in the Phantom of the Paradise I almost didn't recognize him. In a lot of ways, he steals the show.


9. This Night I Will Possess your Corpse (1967)



Zé do Caixão is up to his old shenanigans again! Still trying to find a woman to bare his evil spawn. I actually liked this second instalment of the Coffin Joe series even more than the first, At Midnight I'll Steal you Soul. With essentially the same plot it's clear that José Mojica Marins had a bigger budget to work with. I enjoyed watching him scare girls with spiders in their beds and ravish the toughest girl amidst the screams of the other girls being bitten by snakes. I felt like the character had more depth in this movie and showed borderline human emotions. The Jigoku-esque nightmare sequence depicting a colorized version of Hell is worth seeing the movie for alone!



10. You'll Find Out (1940)



I've been highly anticipating the release of this Universal horror comedy of the "Spooks Run Wild" variety. The story revolves around Kay Kyser's band, who are playing at a young heiress' birthday party. Several creeps are out to kill the young lady so they can have her inheritance. The villains are played by Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre. This is one of the funniest movies of this genre that I have yet to see. Kyser was a surprisingly silly and charming leading man. The gags were great, the music was great, and Peter Lorre was on top of his game! What more could you want? How about a SONOVOX?! Yes, this movie is super cool.



Honorable Mentions:
the Wolf Man (1941), the Devil Doll (1936), the Raven (1963), Calling Dr. Death (1943), the Dark Backward (1991), the Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) [this would have made the top 10 but I bumped it down since it doesn't really fall into the horror genre, just to keep a theme going]



Lon Chaney Jr. (1906-1973)



Though none of his movies made the top 10, I feel that he deserves a
special acknowledgement for being so charismatic in all eight movies I saw him in this month.

Trick or Treat

Here's a Halloween treat for everyone. Zappa's Halloween album. This may only appeal to all you Zappa fans out there, but since it's super rare and I never got around to making the Halloween mix I was planning, I thought I'd offer it anyways. I didn't cut all the tracks, so side A is one track and side B is another. Some kind of run into eachother so it works. Enjoy!




















Son of a Prelude to the Afternoon of a sexually aroused Gas Mask

the Ghost of Halloween past

So, I feel as though I've let another October pass me by! I'm all theory, no execution. That's my problem. I make all of these big plans and either overwhelm myself or just flake out entirely. Although I must say I was pretty good about sticking to my horror marathon. I still have 9 hours or so left of October and so far I've watched 57 movies, only a few slipped through the cracks. For instance, the Invisible Woman, is actually more of a romantic comedy with a gimmick...who knew? Witchfinder General was pretty disappointing, especially considering a lot of people say it's one of Vincent Price's best roles. I actually think that's a pretty insulting statement towards such a fantastic actor. He has some good moments in it, as he does in EVERYTHING, but I can honestly say it's my least favorite Vincent Price movie I've seen so far. It was very dry but violent. That's my least favorite kind of violence. It turned out not to be a horror movie, which is fine, but it was definitely below my expectations.

I've decided to stay in for this Halloween. Last year I said I was going to do that but I ended up doing a really amazing face painting job on myself and at the last minute decided to go show it off. I had been encouraged by the restaurant I worked at to come by for the employee costume contest, threw on an outfit to match my paint job and called myself a luchadore. Not exactly what I had intended but my face looked more like a mask so it worked...

I ended up losing to three really shitty costumes. As my cousin would call them "slutty blanks". You know the type 90% of the female population seems to gravitate towards these gimmicky stripper-esque costumes (slutty fairy, slutty Alice from Alice in Wonderland, Slutty cat girl, slutty zombie, slutty _____ [fill in the blank, get it?]). I have no problem with sluttiness, it's the lack of originality that gets me. I myself was even guilty of the slutty zombie when I was fresh out of high school and had just seen that Japanese movie "Stacy", and in all fairness even with my bout with slutty blank, I hand tore my costume and liquid latex-ed myself from head to toe. But I don't expect a truly fantastic costume to lose to a *shutters* store bought costume. It sort of killed my Halloween spirit. It's not the first time I've lost a contest, and yes, I know winning isn't everything, but that time it really made an impression on me. It said a lot about the kind of costumes people want to see, but more so the kind of place I was working (thank God I ended my tenure at that shithole). It put me in a funk and made me think about my past Halloweens. A lot of amazing costumes I came up with at the last minute with literally NOTHING but some acrylic paint and whatever I pulled out of my closet. But the Halloween's themselves are vague memories due to drunkenness and mayhem. The first Halloween I remember after I stopped trick or treating was the first time I really had a horror movie marathon. I watched all of the Friday the 13th movie on Monster Vision, although now they're really not my favorite, that was a very significant year. I had so much fun by myself eating super buttery popcorn and my grandparents candy for the trick or treaters that never came. After last year's buzz kill and wishing I had stayed home I want to take this year to finish my horror marathon, eat pizza, attempt to carve Peter Lorre's face in a pumpkin and stay sober! Is it lame that I'm excited about this?

Happy Birthday to Bela Lugosi and ME!

Aside from us both being way sexy and also creatures of the night, Mr. Lugosi and I also share our day of birth. Here's the picture of us last birthday, I'm about to open my presents and he's putting the candle on the cake. Oh what fun we had! He'll be 127 today.

other celebrity birthdays today: Jean Pierre Melville, Wanda Jackson, Jelly Roll Morton, Grandpa Jones, Vigo Mortensen and Snoop Dog.
it's a good day to be born.
I'll also be drinking to Burt Lancaster tonight, who died on October 20th 1994. When I was only 9 years old and didn't know how cool he was.
Thinking about posting of my amazing movie-gifts later.

My Mom is Tor Johnson's Mom

I was thinking about "This Night I will Possess Your Corpse" and what an awkward title that is. I mean, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Not to say that it isn't BRILLIANT. Coffin Joe should have made a movie called "Sometime next week I'm thinking about possibly borrowing your nail clippers".

Ok, I think some mini-reviews are in order!














I've been making my rounds through the various untapped video findings I've collected from local thrifts, and finally decided to watch "And Now the Screaming Starts" an Amicus, period piece haunted house-type horror movie. To be honest, I generally don't care for that formula. Possibly why I put off watching it for so long, but in a moment of desperation, this unsung classic really surprised me with it's coolness.

First of all, it stars a bunch of great house names for Amicus and Hammer, such as (big surprise) Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, Ian Ogilvy, Stephanie Beachman, but most importantly, Patrick Magee, who was also in Tales from the Crypt and Dementia 13, both movies I just happened to watch in the same week! He's haunting my movie marathons and I like it. the plot is ...well, kinda serious. A vengeful ghost haunts a "virgin bride" (pah!) by showing her it's severed "Thing"-hand, and desecrating her womb. Unfortunately they don't show that part, but there's a baby with a nub for a hand, and that's what really matters.



I finally got around to seeing this hilarious "romp" (I guess would be the word?). I have this thing for horror comedies, well, I'm obsessed with Arsenic and Old Lace and I'm always trying to find more movies like it. There really aren't many other movies like it. I've kind of self-titled this kind of horror comedy "Spooks Run Wild" after the East Side Kids movie, how better to sum up the jester-like antics of these classic monsters/characters?


Aside from the fact that Lou Costello whines a lot (I can only take so much) this is a really funny movie, especially the last couple of scenes when Dracula and Wolfman are duking it out, and the uncredited voice cameo of Vincent Price as the Invisible Man makes his ...uh... "appearance" (?)

Straying further and further from the "horror" on this particular day, I ended up watching the Big Cube, which should have been called "The Big Turd" or even just "the Big Disappointment" would have been more fitting. I thought it would be a suspenseful psychedelic mystery-type of thing, ended up coming across more like a big budget propaganda movie. The DANGER of LSD, blah blah blah. Overly dramatic and attempted to come across sincere. I often read about these 60's psychedelic movies being "out-dated", such as one of my all time favorite cult movies, Otto Preminger's "Skidoo". I find it's unnecessary to even attempt and compare the 60's to the present. There are certainly movies that are timeless, but "psychedelic" movies aren't really made anymore. It was fresh in the 60's and I'm usually thrilled to see this moment in time captured in a way even my own psychedelic experiences couldn't approach. What I'm getting at is that as a general rule I love LSD themed movies! THIS MOVIE seems to be the exception! True, the effects were cool, colorful, sparkly, and fun... and so they should be! But the plot was very "meh", and kind of depressing. A spoiled rich girl's father remarries an aging actress (Lana Turner) who both seem to be very much in love. She of course acts bratty and rebels. Meets a young stud (not really though, George Chakiris, better known to me as Bernardo from West Side Story) who's an ex-med student, expelled for making LSD in the lab and selling it to students. After the rich father dies at sea trying to save Lana, Chakiris cooks up a scheme to drive Lana insane by slipping LSD in her pills and playing a tape with haunting suicidal/homicidal recordings on it; in her bedroom to drive her insane. Once she's out of the picture, he can marry the spoiled dumb ass (Karin Mossberg, who didn't do much else, a few Spanish movies) for her money. Her character is what I dislike about this movie the most. She acts completely mean and vindictive just because some guy she hardly knows convinces her that she needs her father's money NOW rather than waiting until she's 25 like the will states. I just can't sympathize with a character like that, yet it's played as if she's a victim as well. The ending doesn't really make any sense either, Chakiris just has a bad trip and Lana and Karin have themselves some step-bonding. Thee End. Whatever.

At this point I realized that I had inadvertently broken my horror-only vow for this month, so I said, "What the hell, time for some Van Damme"...

I was at my mom's house flipping through the channels. This is the only time I get to enjoy, or not enjoy the luxuries of cable. It's hit or miss with those over priced movie channels. For instance, before this gem came on you would have caught me watching Dutch starring Ed O'neal and Ethan Embry when he was 12 and still had a promising acting career, but I digress...

In my universe good and bad are inexplicably linked. For this reason, this may be the greatest movie ever made. The greatest bad movie that is. It almost magically comes full circle from bad to hilarious to "whoever wrote this is a comic GENIUS!". And let's face it, Van Damme has made some stinkers. Wonderfully tacky with his signature side-split and mullet.

For this to have surpassed Double Impact is truly a remarkable achievement.

Do you know what the best part of this movie is? No, not the one liners, not the ABSURD typical 90's action movie plot, not even the amazing fight sequence in the kitchen with a Penguin Mascot (though that one was DAMN close, VAN DAMME CLOSE [sorry]).

The highlight of this movie was of course Mr. Powers Boothe as my new favorite super villain...

At the end you get to see this handsome asshole wearing a really awkward blonde wig and moustache, and his death (not giving much away, this is a Van Damme movie so obviously the bad guy's gotta die) is the most sensational retarded Hollywood crap I've ever seen! I couldn't even believe it was happening.

I'd like to take this opportunity to express my love for this man. After Emerald Forrest, I was hooked. Hopelessly addicted to yet another brilliant underrated actor. And what a name, POWERS BOOTHE, could you think of a more power-ful name?

That's all for now!

Happy Birthday, Edward D. Wood Jr!

Today should be a national holiday to celebrate schlockiness!

Hello-ween!

I should teach a class called "Slacker 101". I am the poster child for procrastination. Why do I say this? The first week of my absolute favorite month of the year has come and gone and here I am, at a loss for words. My Halloween spirit has suffered this year, it suffered a bit last year two, which worries me. I feel like my inner child deeply needs some attention. So naturally I've been digesting ample helpings of horror, sci-fi, thrillers, mysteries, etc. Yet, until today I've let the intimidation if this lovely season overcome me.

So let's talk this thing out.

Florida is HOT. Steamy slimy swampy amphibious fornication of the senses. Have you ever felt like your entire body was an armpit? Have you ever felt like this?

Thankfully with the help of Peter Lorre and Arthur Crabtree I've been able to overcome this defeat.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say that Tony Todd sucks. He's a bad actor and an asshole to boot. I met him once and he wasn't very nice. It took me years to finally get around to watching the shitty Night of the Living Dead remake. Now that that's out of the way, it was quite refreshing to see something I would say is in good taste....

this movie should have been called "the Fainting Woman" considering that every time "the Screaming Skull" makes an appearances, the gal practically collapses on top of it. I'm more fascinated with this than any other aspect of the movie. The whole fainting thing. I love it. In fact, I can't get enough of it. It's just such a cop out? How mentally/physically frail do you have to be to just blackout? I mean, sure, if human remains appeared in my living room I'd have a few questions, and if I were afraid my instinct would be to get away. FAR away. Aren't you sort of at the mercy of whatever , when you faint? I couldn't stop thinking about this after I watched the movie, I talked to a friend about it and she suggested that there's some sort of unexplainable fear of the supernatural attached to the idea of skeletons. A sort of unrest that reminds you of your own mortality. I guess when you think about it that way, I wouldn't feel particularly comfortable around a skeleton, outside of say; a doctor's office. However, I can't break this idea I formed as child that put in one of these horror movie scenarios where I would be confronted with a ghastly skeleton that I couldn't just kick it in the shin and run away. I mean, what's it going to do? Rattle it's bones at ya? Chatter it's teeth a bit? I would think that skeletons sort of the laughing stock of the supernatural world. I digress...

It's good to be back!