Video Game Violence: The Early Years

I recently downloaded a great deal (or shitload, if you will) of Fangoria back issues and found these awesome ads in issues 24 and 25. I was considering posting some issues on the site, but since I've actually had a few of my posts (not just the links, the actual posts) taken down by Blogger recently, I'm trying to be a bit cautious for now. I might still post some of them soon though.

Anyway, the ads promise "a new way to take out your frustrations" with "violent video games" that let you "know the pleasure of total destruction". Or course, actual gameplay may vary:

My question, who is the dude in the Poliziotteschi getup shooting at Bubba on the TCM cover?

No!!!! Dan O'Bannon - September 30th, 1946 - December 16th, 2009

Dan O'Bannon - September 30th, 1946 - December 16th, 2009

From Matt Goldberg @ Collider:

"A legendary screenwriter of science fiction and horror, Dan O’Bannon, best known for writing Alien, passed away today at the age of 63. Bannon broke out back in 1974 with the lo-budget sci-fi flick Dark Star, which was director John Carpenter’s first major film. O’Bannon not only wrote the script for Dark Star, he also edited, art designed, acted in, and handled the special effects on the film.

Then he wrote Alien, which would be his biggest film both critically and commercially. But oddly enough, O’Bannon’s most ardent fans, while they unabashedly love Alien, seem to support the guy more for his smaller cult movies like Dark Star, Dead & Buried, Blue Thunder, his segment “B-17″ in Heavy Metal, and for The Return of the Living Dead, a film he also directed."

Return of the Living Dead has been my favorite movie since about 1987 when I first saw it, so I'm especially saddened by this one. I actually yelled "No!!!" out loud a few times when I heard the news a few moments ago, despite the fact that it's currently about 2:50 in the morning.

I will honor him with a Alien/Dead & Buried/ROTLD/Dark Star/The Resurrected/Total Recall marathon this weekend.

Robot Sleeperhold Or: Who The Fuck Is Parson Brown? - A Christmas Album

Christmas music sucks. Oh, I'm sure most people out there would disagree with me. I'm sure there are people out there right now, genuinely enjoying the overwhelming onslaught of nauseating yuletide melodies pummeling them over the head during every waking moment between October 26th and December 25th.

Not me. Christmas music doesn't fill me with joy. It fills me with dread. Dread, coupled with the desire to hit someone in the skull with a stool. Or a toilet lid. Or a blender. Or any kind of household property I might be able to lift and swing towards someone, really.

So I've putting together my own demented brand of Christmas compilation featuring some Christmas hits, some Christmas misses and even a few tracks that have nothing to do with Christmas, but do have the word Christmas in the title. This album is for those of you who feel that hearing Blue Christmas one more time - just once - just might be the thing that finally sends you over the edge.

I call it Robot Sleeperhold Or: Who The Fuck is Parson Brown? Because seriously, who is Parson Brown?

I went a little overboard here, there's about 30 songs total and it clocks in at around 1:49:42. Grab this one while you can, it might not stay up too long.

1. King Diamond - No Presents For Christmas
2. Count Floyd & The Pink Floyds - Reggae Christmas Eve in Transylvania
3. Shonen Knife - Space Christmas
4. Halford - What Child Is This
5. Bootsy Collins - Dis Christmiss
6. August Burns Red - Carol of the Bells
7. Bobby 'Boris' Pickett - Monster's Holiday
8. Wham! - Last Christmas
9. Jet Boys - Merry Christmas, Fuck You
10. Run DMC - Christmas in Hollis
11. Los Straitjackets - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
12. Manic Street Preachers - Christmas Ghost
13. Greg Lake (minus Emerson or Palmer) - I Believe In Father Christmas
14. Mojo Nixon - Christmas Christmas
15. The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight)
16. Pretty Maids - In Santa's Claws
17. Joel Robinson, Thomas Servo, Crow "Theodore" Robot & The Satellite of Love Orchestra - (Let's Have) A Patrick Swayze Christmas
18. The Raveonettes - The Christmas Song
19. Spinal Tap - Christmas With The Devil
20. Mogwai - Christmas Song
21. London After Midnight - The Christmas Song
22. Chinese Kids Choir - Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
23. Wizzard featuring vocal backing by The Suedettes plus The Stockland Green Bilateral School First Year Choir with additional noises by Miss Snob & Class 3C - I Wish it Could Be Christmas Everyday
24. Gregorian - In The Bleak Midwinter
25. Universal Robot Band - Disco Christmas
26. Tankard - Fuck Christmas
27. Monty Python - Christmas in Heaven
28. Tom Waits - Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis
29. Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
30. Type O Negative - Red Water (Christmas Mourning)

Goddamn ye, merry gentlemen (Part 1)
I'm chilling and coolin just like a snowman (Part 2)

Note: I know it kinda looks like it says I Robot Sleeperhold. It doesn't. Sorry for any confussion.

Chuck Me, Chuck You, Chuck Everybody

Chuck's third season is premiering with a 2-hour long episode at 8PM on January 10th, then resuming it's usual time slot of Mondays at 8 on January 11th. Here's an awesome preview of the upcoming season. Spoiler warning for those not having seen Season 2.

I'm already taking January 10th and 11th off of work to prepare. Everyone be sure to watch, tell everyone you know to watch and hopefully Chuck'll become a hit and Chuck fans won't have to start petitions to keep it on another season this time.

Video Today's Guide to Horror Video - 1986

This is Video Today's Guide to Horror Video from 1986. This was a 32-page supplemental magazine covering the Top 100 Horror tapes available in 1986. From Angel of Vengeance (Ms. 45) to Zombie Creeping Flesh. It also includes a look back at some of cinema's finest scream queens and a brief overview of the "big 4" movie monsters, Dracula, The Mummy, The Werewolf and Frankenstein's Monster (incidentally, I'm currently wearing a shirt with the big 4 on it).

Obviously at 32 pages, this isn't covering a ton of ground, but it's still pretty cool for anyone who enjoys stuff like Videohound, or The Essential Monster Movie Guide.

Video...Today!

The Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook

The last book post was pretty popular, so here's another, also snagged from Cinemaggedon. This is John Russo's Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook from 1985.

From the back cover:

"Here is the exciting in-depth story of a horror classic - told by an insider!

The Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook is a gold mine full of entertaining, enlightening anecdotes. It includes numerous photographs, many of which have never been published before. Film fans and budding film-makers will enjoy and appreciate this comprehensive, insightful look into the creation of one of the best horror films ever made."

Credit to the original scanner/uploader.

Get It

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Werewolves - A Manchester Morgue Compilation

It's been brought to my attention that my last compilation Young Monsters In Love violated the DMA, so that post has been removed (not by me). So apologies for anyone who didn't have a chance to download it, but I'm just going to keep it down to stay out of trouble.

Hopefully this new compilation I'm posting today makes it for more than 2 weeks. This compilation is comprised of rare, or unreleased music featured in films (like the first few compilations I did). I call it Rock 'em Sock 'em Werewolves. This is kind of a B-Side to the last compilation like this called Vampire Tickle Fight, as I ripped/gathered a lot of the songs at the same time I was working on that one.

The title was inspired by a discussion with a friend over why they didn't have any other Rock 'em Sock 'ems. Why only robots? The conversation actually went on for several minutes, this compilation could've been called a number of things - Rock 'em Sock 'em Frankensteins, Rock 'em Sock 'em C.H.U.D.s, Rock 'em Sock 'em Golems - but I had just downloaded some Werewolf by Nights from The Comic Vault and there was an issue with Werewolf by Night fighting some other werewolf, so Werewolves it is.

The colors of the cover were actually a bit garish, a purple werewolf on blue background was a bit of an eyesore. So I tried something a little different for this one. Still a bit of an eyesore, but I think it's decent enough. I know, it's a bit dark, but I'll lighten it up later on.

The audio quality on these varies wildly, but on most of these it's not my fault.

The tracklist:

1. Leif Garret & Fat White Guy - Cheerleader Rap from Cheerleader Camp
2. Peter Yellen and The Breakers - Fall Break from The Mutilator
3. Toxic Avenger Part II theme
4. Dan Skye - Toxic Avenger Part III theme
5. Calamari Wrestler - DVD music video
6. Cynthia Zirow - Into The Black from Ozone aka Street Zombies.
7. Billy Barber - Beat of the Heart from Scared Stiff
8. Bill Marx/Marilynn Lovell - Torment from Scream Blacula Scream
9. Cry No More - Recipe for Romance from Bloody New Year
10. Lisa Edwards - Playing With Fire from Dead-End Drive-In
11. Dirt Bike Annie - Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things from Die and Let Live
12. Karaoke Terror End Credits
13. Drunk Horse - National Lust from Murder Party
14. Didus & The Fabulous Mascarenes - So and So from There's Nothing Out There
15. Maestro Fresh Wes - She's Gonna Freak You from Prom Night III
16. Kit Fuller - Love Me Deadly from Love Me Deadly
17. Shandi - Living on the Edge from Making the Grade
18. Shayna Zaid - Among the Dead from Flight of the Living Dead
19. Marilynn Lovell - My Dream from Terror at Red Wolf Inn
20. Doug Riley - Cannibal Girls End Credit Theme
21. L.A. Posse - Lost in Time from Waxwork II
22. Ted "Rhyme Throwah" Raimi - Bustin' Brains from The Man With The Screaming Brain
23. The McCain Brothers - The Legend of Guandi from My Name is Bruce

And now, some notes on select tracks:

Leif Garret & Fat White Guy - Cheerleader Rap from Cheerleader Camp. What's better than a fat white guy rapping? Leif Garret rapping with said fat white guy.

Peter Yellen and The Breakers - Fall Break from The Mutilator.

Toxic Avenger Part II theme - Can't find out who plays this one, so I'll just have to assume the band was comprised of: Toxie on Vocals and rythym guitar, Lloyd Kaufman on Lead Guitar, Ike & Addley sharing Bass duties, and The Fat Guy Who Went Nutzoid in Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid on Drums.

Dan Skye - Toxic Avenger Part III theme

Calamari Wrestler - Not sure the artist or song title here. It's listed as "Music Video" on the DVD. And if you go to the Pathfinder DVD site, they don't even mention there being a "music video" on the DVD at all.

Dirt Bike Annie - Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things from Die and Let Live. Zombie comedy/ Sandlot homage. Seriously, there are at least half a dozen references to the movie The Sandlot. Characters named Bennie and Squints, PT Flyers scene, "You're killing me Smalls!"...that's only 3 but I haven't seen this is like 2 years, so I'm a bit unsure on the rest.

Karaoke Terror End Credits. The credits to this were surprisingly Japanese. What this means is that I have no idea what this song is called or who is singing it. I'm hoping someone out there can fill me in.

Drunk Horse - National Lust from Murder Party. On the last comp I posted a 2Tite song from Murder Party, but I'm not as big on this one so I left it for this one. Too much "Whoo, whoo" for me, reminds me of Forty Licks. I hate that song.

Didus & The Fabulous Mascarenes - So and So from There's Nothing Out There. Best band name ever? These guys sound like what I think a band of schizophrenic clowns would sound like.

Maestro Fresh Wes - She's Gonna Freak You from Prom Night III. I have no idea why, but this was my favorite Prom Night. Not the best - in fact, probably the worst overall - but still the most entertaining for me. For the curious:

Prom Night III

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2

Prom Night IV

Prom Night

Kit Fuller - Love Me Deadly from Love Me Deadly. Hands down the creepiest song I've posted in some time. It's a ballad, really, but something about it is just eerie. Maybe it's the light necrophilia taking place while this is playing in the film.

Shandi - Living on the Edge from Making the Grade. This was a failed attempt at starting up a Judd Nelson trilogy. Turns out you need a hit on your hands before you can make a second and third movie to complete a trilogy.

Shayna Zaid - Among the Dead from Flight of the Living Dead. The song is only as long as the opening credits to the movie, a more complete version of the song was never recorded. This is actully nothing like any of her other music at all. She plays a kind of...ugh...Indie Folk in her day to day. Blah.

Marilynn Lovell - My Dream from Terror at Red Wolf Inn. This is actually Marilynn's second item on this compilation. She wrote the music for Torment from Scream Blacula Scream.

Doug Riley - Cannibal Girls End Credit Theme. This is a "lost" Canadian film starring Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin, and directed by this guy called Ivan Reitman. I don't know him, I think his son directed Juno or something. This one probably has the roughest quality of the bunch, being that it was ripped from a super old VHS tape.

Ted "Rhyme Throwah" Raimi - Bustin' Brains from The Man With The Screaming Brain. For anyone wondering what Ted "Theodore" Raimi would sound like rapping with a goofy accent, wonder no more.

The McCain Brothers - The Legend of Guandi from My Name is Bruce. I'm in the minority as I really enjoyed Bruce's performance as Bruce in Bruce. Sure it was on the corny side, and it could've been more gruesome, and a pair of unclothed hooters could've made an appearance, but I like it just the way it is.

Sock 'Em

Free Download of Michael Giacchinos UP Score - Today Only on Amplified.com

Today only (12/03) Amplified.com is offering up a free download of Michael Giacchino's score from Disney Pixar's Up. I figure this might be a nice change of pace for visitors of this site, something on the beaten path for once.

Nothing to sign up for or anything, just click here and enter the code latimesdisney

Blood & Black Lace - The Definitive Guide to Italian Sex and Horror Movies

A while ago I downloaded a ton of horror fanzine/books over at Cinemaggedon and this was one of the better things I got. Dark Side magazine's Blood & Black Lace - The Definitive Guide to Italian Sex and Horror Movies. This 164 page guide covers practically every Giallo ever filmed, complete with tons of fantastic artwork and sexy and/or gruesome stills.

A few sample pages:

Chainsaw Massacres - Texas Style

Here are a few lesser seen Texas Chainsaw posters. Or Chain Saw as it's for some reason spelled on the first movie. I mean, I know it can be spelled with a space or without, but come on, it should be one or the other. Not both. I'm voting for chainsaw - no space. What do you guys think?

Chainsaw or Chain Saw? Chainsaw Chain Saw Results

I'd never seen this first poster before a few minutes ago, but I adore it. The artwork is great and I love the Giallo-like font used for the title. One day I'd like to go through and make a font or two from several of these posters. I've found that locating good vintage horror poster style fonts (that don't suck) is pretty tricky. Of course, I'm pretty lazy (for a variety of reasons, depending on what you're asking me to do) so I could see this Giallo font project taking me quite some time to get around to doing.

Jacinto Molina (Paul Naschy) September 6, 1934 - December 1, 2009

Rest in Peace Waldemar

Young Monsters in Love - A Thanksgiving-ey Manchester Morgue Compilation

Okay, so there's actually nothing "Thanksgiving-ey" about this compilation at all because, well, nobody has ever written a song about Thanksgiving. Look it up, nobody. Unless you count Pugsley's Eat Us, or Happy Turkey Day from Addams Family Values (music and lyrics by Gary Granger) there aren't really any songs about Thanksgiving. In fact, I think Labor Day has more songs, and that's not even a real day.

Since my I Got Erection and Creatures of the Night cover compilations were fairly well received, here's another collection of cover songs. Some covers you'll love, some you'll hate, but that's part of the fun of listening to bands do cover songs, isn't it?

I've found some pretty standard covers for this collection - like Laos' More Than a Feeling - but I've also uncovered a few very bizarre choices. Veruca Salt taking on a Sex Pistols track? Paradise Lost doing Small Town Boy? And, the most bizarre part on that one, it actually works quite well (up until the "cry boy, cry" part, that bit sounds awkward).

Given the art I've used, this would've been more ideal artwork for a Valentine's Day compilation, but I'll just have to come up with something else when the time comes. This cover does have me wondering one thing - is it still necrophilia if both parties are technically dead?

Between the Buried and Me - Kickstart My Heart (Motley Crue)

Hellsongs - Seasons in the Abyss (Slayer)

Blutengel - Stay (Shakespeare's Sister)

Bat For Lashes - A Forest (The Cure)

Chromatics - Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush)

Ether Aura - Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me (The Smiths)

Paradise Lost - Small Town Boy (Bronski Beat)

Even Vast - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)

Laos - More Than A Feeling (Boston)

Ghostlines - Brave New World (Iron Maiden)

Epica - Replica (Fear Factory)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sheena is a Punk Rocker (Ramones)

Nightwish - Where Were You Last Night (Ankie Bagger)

Tapping The Vein - Cornflake Girl (Tori Amos)

Iced Earth - Transylvania (Iron Maiden)

The Birthday Massacre - I Think We're Alone Now (Tiffany)

Theatre of Tragedy - You Keep Me Hanging On (The Supremes/Kim Wilde)

Angelzoom - Crawling (Linkin Park)

Veruca Salt - Bodies (Sex Pistols)

45 Grave - Riboflavin Flavored, Non-Carbonated, Poly-Unsaturated Blood (Don Hinson And The Rigamorticians)

The Jet Black Berries Strike Back

About 2 months ago I finally set up an actual Manchester Morgue email account (to be found in my profile on the right, tell your friends) and 2 months ago, I promptly forgot all about it. So, very sorry to the people who sent me emails and didn't get replies. I'm not a dick, I'm just an idiot. I'll be getting back to everyone (there were dozens of you, dozens!) shortly.

Anyway, one of the emails I got was from the band Jet Black Berries. What I gathered from the email "Holy fucking shit, The Jet Black Berries are back!". They're scheduled to have an EP released this month and a brand new album sometime in 2010. This is tremendous news and I for one cannot wait to hear their new album.

You can check them out, and a new song or two at their Myspace page.

Evil Dead: The Musical

Do you like The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 and select lines of dialog from Army of Darkness? Do you like low-budget gore-comedy musicals? If you answered yes to both of those questions, you just might enjoy Evil Dead: The Musical. This is a recording of the show from way back in 2003. I downloaded this about a year ago and forgot I had it. I was reminded of it yesterday, finally gave it a watch, enjoyed the hell out of it and thought a few of you out there might like to check this out.

From what I understand this is a VHS rip of a performance of the show, and it is certainly not high on audio or video quality. However, I sat down to do a quick quality test of the file on a 42" TV and ended up planted there for the entire duration of the show, so if I could tolerate it at that size, for that long, I'd say it's watchable quality.

There is a lot of funny in the 90 minute runtime, and plenty of blood and entrails as well. If you watch one gory slapstick musical featuring a headless candarian demon attacking a man with a chainsaw, make sure it's this one.

The show is still running today, so be sure to check out a live show if they visit your town. Looks like Council Bluffs, Iowa is the next stop. So any Iowians (Iowans? Iowanese? Whatever you guys want to be called...) reading this make sure to get out there and check it out.

WARNING: This production contains fountains of spraying blood! Front row "SPLATTER ZONE" seats are First-Come-First-Serve. Ponchos will be available for purchase at the box office for anyone wanting to protect their fabulous clothing!

Split over 5 parts, you'll need all 5 to extract the file:

What the fuck was that?!

Remake of the Demons

I love Night of the Demons, Night of the Demons 2 and Monica Keena, so Monica Keena in a Night of the Demons should be okay, right?

Hey, at least it can't be any worse than Night of the Demons 3.

Mary Shelley Overdrive - Learn Karate

I just received a very exciting email from The Manchester Morgue's favorite band Mary Shelley Overdrive. I'll let the email do the talking:

"Here it is ... Learn Karate, a new full-length LP from Mary Shelley Overdrive. This is a FREE compilation of outtakes, demos, interviews and bootleg-quality live recordings. As with our other freebies, you share this music however you want. Post it, e-mail it, stream it, etc.

Learn Karate runs 59 minutes and has 21 tracks. Inside the ZIP bundle is a TXT file with notes on each song, an MP3-file sized cover, a printable cover and a PDF scrapbook of band photos.

This is a grab-bag collection of random songs recorded over the last two years, so expect a disjointed feel. Some of the tracks have less-than-perfect sound quality."

Phelpster says check it out (especially The God In The Bowl, my personal favorite of the bunch), and be sure to share it wherever you see fit:

Now...The World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets Can Be Yours!

1. I Heart Cthulu
2. Spider On The Ceiling
3. Dread Media Interview
4. The Siege and Investiture of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria
5. Birmingham Jail
6. Dinner With Drac
7. A Word From Our Sponsor
8. Dread Media Interview #2
9. The God In The Bowl
10. We Heart Music Interview #1
11. Pornstar 80 (Stardust Demo)
12. One Quarter, One Play (8-Bit Kill Screen Version)
13. The Tomb of Dracula
14. We Heart Music Interview #2
15. Zombie Apocalypse Blues
16. Murderworld USA
17. Charlie's Angels (Live)
18. Jack The Ripper (Live)
19. Pornstar 80 (Live)
20. The Devil You Know (Live)
21. Science Fiction Double Feature

Three Dimensions of Pete Walker

I haven't made a poster post in a while, so here are a couple Pete Walker one-sheets, and a couple of Pete Walker ads from some old issues of Fangoria.

The Flesh and Blood Show - With Free Blood-Proof Smock!

Three Dimensions of Greta

House of Whipcord

Schizo

Note the tagline from Schizo; "When the left hand doesn't know who the right hand is killing!". Now that is a tagline. Hilarious.

Adam Gorgoni - Candyman 3: Day Of The Dead

Adam Gorgoni's score from Candyman 3: Day of the Dead. Directed by Turi Meyer who wrote such gems as Chairman of the Board and Leprechaun 2 (which was apparently called One Wedding and Lots of Funerals on the UK video release - can any Britlanders out there confirm this?)

Bonus points to the composer for having the word "Gorgon" in his name.

01. Main Title (03:19)

02. Flashback/Love Theme (02:09)

03. First Death/Aftermath (03:12)

04. The Hallway (01:46)

05. It Was Him (02:04)

06. Are You OK (00:56)

07. Abuela (02:31)

08. A Brief Romance (02:56)

09. Tamara Dies (01:57)

10. The Warehouse (01:50)

11. The Goths Die (03:09)

12. Finale (05:30)

13. Epilogue (02:13)

Is it just me or is "Blood is sharper than the blade" the worst tagline ever? I've seen thousands of silly or corny taglines, but this one doesn't even make sense.

Introducing The Manchester Morgue's Completely Optional Donate Button

I'm seeing more and more bloggers putting up their little Paypal Donate buttons, so I thought I might as well give it a shot. This is, of course, entirely optional for anyone. If you're making more money than you need, you like my site and want to throw a couple of dollars towards it, that's great. If not, that's great too.

I'd considered this before, but I felt it seems a bit like begging. Not outright "hey man, do you have any change so I can buy a sandwich" begging, more like "guy playing a saxaphone while collecting donations in his upturned hat" kind of begging. Begging, but with a service attached. But now, with my current job/car situation I have to try and pull in a bit of extra income however I can.

I know, it seems weird to add the donate button now that I haven't had an actual post in about 2 weeks, but rest assured I am ready to get back into action and start posting regularly again, probably starting today.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Episode 508 Operation Double 007

This is Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 508, featuring the Lip-Reading/Hypnotist/Doctor/Spy film Operation Double 007. This "not at all a James Bond ripoff" film stars Sean Connery's brother Neil Connery as...wait for it... Dr. Neil Connery. I didn't think it was legal to play a character named after yourself if you're not playing the character as yourself. Well, outside of a TV show, at least. For example, Drew Carey was called Drew Carey on his show even though the character was not the Drew Carey. But I don't think I've seen this in a movie before.

Still with me? Not only did they get Bond's brother, they even managed to get Miss Moneypenny herself Lois Maxwell on board - as Ms. Maxwell. What the hell? Twice? Really?

The bad news, the movie is, as you'd imagine, pretty awful. The good news, more hot broads than you can count. Sometimes dressed as cats, even, if that does something for you. The producers (and four writers) knew this film was a turd and filled the screen with as many attractive women as they could.

I've made it clear many times that I'm a Mike preferer, but I laughed my ass off at this Joel episode. A lot. This movie, while being a turd, is rather entertaining, and the MST guys seem to have really had a lot of fun with this one. I highly recommend any fan of the show grab this at once.

As an added bonus for this episode, regular visitors of the site will be excited to see both Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai's names in the opening credits of the film.

Sorry guys, Shout! Factory put this one out, links removed.

Remake Crazies

And now, The Crazies has a remake trailer. What is this, the 4th remake of a George Romero film? What's next, Knightriders?

The trailer kinda starts off looking like "Stroke Victims: The Movie" in a couple of scenes but it does end with some decent looking zombie onslaught action, so at least there's that. I'm taking a point off for the completely awkward use of Gary Jules cover of Mad World towards the end. A fine cover, but it does not work at all with the images onscreen. In fact, it works so little with the images onscreen that it kind of makes everyone involved look like a bunch of assholes.

House of Hammer/Halls of Horror 21-30

Here is the last of the House of Hammer issues. They eventually changed the title to Halls of Horror, but it's still the same magazine. I realize the covers aren't in order, Blogger uploads pictures so that the first picture in the list is the first to appear on the post. Meaning that it will be at the bottom. I'm too lazy to fix it right, but I doubt anyone will really care much.

A Remake On Elm Street

We have a trailer. Looks pretty decent, some of the shots of Freddy in the shadows are very striking, but I'm not too sure about the one actual face shot we get at the end. He looks almost...cute? Like a burnt muppet or something. I can't quite put my finger on it, but he looks like a cute loveable character I've seen before.

MST3K Squirm Review

I haven't put any Mystery Science Theater up in quite some time, so here is the 12th episode of the final season. This is their take on Jeff Lieberman's Squirm. A tale of a dorky scrawny city boy and his daft scrawny bumpkin girlfriend in a fight against mutant earthworms - occasionally portrayed by spaghetti noodles. There's also a burly mildly retarded Steve Young/Alvin The Chipmunk looking man, who may or may not be a rapist, depending on what part of the movie you're at. Is he dumb and socially awkward, or is he a sex offender with a record? The movie didn't seem to know, why should we?

In addition, we also get a hilarious short called A Case of Spring Fever in which an obnoxious demonic sprite named Coily shows an obnoxious old moron I think was named Joe - because in the 50's everyone was named Joe - just how important springs are to the world. Turns out, without them the world would cease to function.

This was the second to last episode of the show and the riffing is as strong as ever. I could be biased, Mike episodes with crappy 70's-80's horror/monster movies were always my favorite. I think if you liked Boggy Creek II, or A Touch of Satan you should certainly get a kick out of this one. Come for the over the top southern accents, stay for the legendary "worm in my egg cream" scene.

Interesting thing about this movie, it being shown on MST really pissed off director Jeff Lieberman. Jeff was apparently displeased with his film being shown on MST because "you can't goof on what's already a goof". I've seen Squirm, and if it was supposed to be intentionally comical - a "goof" if you will - some wires must've gotten crossed somewhere because it's not. Maybe in theory it's funny. Take the "creatures run amok" formula, except instead of a killer shark or a big ass grizzly, what if it were something harmless, like regular sized worms. That can roar for some reason. However the actual movie just seems like a regular fairly dull creature picture that just happens to be funny because it's kinda stupid.

I'm not trying to sound like a dick or anything here. I respect him as a filmmaker - Blue Sunshine, Just Before Dawn and Remote Control are all very entertaining - I'm just saying I didn't think Squirm was a goof. Either way, the movie does have a pretty metal poster.

Henry Gibson - September 21, 1935 - September 17, 2009

Henry Gibson September 21, 1935 - September 17, 2009

There have been a lot of celebrity deaths lately, but this one really got to me. Maybe because I used to watch Henry on Laugh-In with my Grandfather when I was a kid and it's reminding me of him. Or maybe because The 'Burbs was my favorite movie until I was about 11. Probably a combination of the two.

He's one of the few guys who I feel the need to yell out the name of when I see them in a movie. I'm pretty sure I did this in the theater during Wedding Crashers. Him and Udo Kier. Udo wasn't in Wedding Crashers, I mean I yell out his name during movies also.

I think a week-long movie watching marathon tribute dedicated to Henry is in order for us all. Some possible choices:

Blues Brothers
The Halloween That Almost Wasn't
Innerspace
The Long Goodbye
Monster in the Closet
The 'burbs
Wedding Crashers

Mummies, Humanimals and Frankenstein are all inside of the House of Hammer

Okay, another huge break from posting. This one wasn't my fault (entirely). Let me explain.

I've never really been a fan of Megadeth. Dave Mustaine's usually ridiculous vocals always kill the music for me. But their early albums are always on "best thrash album" lists, and I'm a laid back dude, I'm willing to give a band I don't like a second chance. But since I'm not a fan, I thought I'd just download an album or two to see if my opinion had changed. I know, I know, downloading readily available music is bad, but spending money on music you might hate is worse. So I clicked on the first Blogger site I saw, found a couple albums to check out and clicked the link. The site I found it on didn't use one of the major downloading services, but I've always had good luck with not having anything really bad happening to me when downloading. The next thing I know, Bam!

Trojan.

Computer turns itself off. I get the computer back up, run like 4 different anti-virus/anti-malware/etc. programs. I am able to kill most of the problems but this one son of a bitch will. Not. Die. Somehow killing the others off just makes this one stronger. Now I can't get Firefox to open. I can't get Opera to open. I'm stuck using IE, for god's sake. Now none of the anti-virus programs will stay open for more than 5 seconds. Whoever developed this trojan (Dave Mustaine, I'm looking in your direction), good job, you win. You murdered my computer.

The moral of the story, I guess, would be "Don't illegally download music". However, we all know we're going to end up doing it at some time for some reason, so when you must download music steer clear of non-Rapid, Mega, Mediafire, and maybe 4shared links for downloading.

Luckily Nero is somehow unaffected by this, so at least I don't lose all of my files. So, I had to go in, back up a shit-ton of files (I had almost 8GB of Photoshop DVD cover related files alone) and eventually go in there and completely format the hard drive. Damn you Dave Mustaine.

Anyway, I'm back up and running, so here are issues 14-20 of House of Hammer. I believe the cover for issue 14 has the only known painting of a caveman getting hit in the crotch by a dancing tyrannosaurus. So it's got that going for it. Also, issue 18 wins the award for "Worst Werewolf". Drunken Security Guard Werewolf from the 1996 movie Werewolf step aside.

People have been clamoring for more Mystery Science Theater, so stayed tuned for that. And by the way, the feds have put the kibosh on my Tokyo Gore Police OST post, so sorry to anyone who missed it, but I'm not going to try and post it again.