Silent Madness

The 1984 film Silent Madness. Like Fatal Games this is another fairly obscure slasher film that I rather enjoyed. Cute girls in aerobic get ups, a deranged bald mama's boy, a crotchety old sheriff who for some reason reminds me of Zelda Rubinstein, a Dragon's Lair arcade game...sure it's not a "good" movie per se, but semi-obscure slasher fans should definitely get a kick out of it. Even if you hate it, the heckling potential is pretty high if you're a sarcastic bastard like myself.

Directed by one Simon Nutchern, one of 4 people credited as director of the infamous Snuff from 1976. The Findlays (Roberta and Michael) and (Swedish Spaniard?) Horacio Fredriksson being the other 3 who may or may not have at some point or another possibly had a hand in directing some part of the movie.

Moving On. Madness was actually filmed in 3-D. I didn't notice much in the way of "aiming things toward the camera" gags, but the poster I've seen says 3-D, so I've gotta believe the poster. Sadly the one I'm posting isn't in 3-D, but it's still worth a watch. Who knows though, 3-D seems to be pretty popular at the moment, maybe a 3-D DVD is just around the corner. Just look at the 3-D happenings of late:

• The amazingly entertaining My Bloody Valentine 3-D
• 3-D commercials during the Super Bowl on February 1st, followed by a 3-D episode of Chuck on the 2nd. Get your glasses here. (Chuck, by the way, is a fantastic show that I can't recommend enough. Watch it!)
• Friday the 13th III on DVD again but actually in 3-D this time.
• An Alexandre Aja helmed remake of Piranha, announced in 3-D
• The Stewardesses, on DVD (this Tuesday actually). Yep, in 3-D
• For the kids Bolt from a few months ago and the upcoming Monsters Vs. Aliens

As you can see, it's a good time for 3D movies to be put out, maybe Silent Madness has at least a slight chance.

Creatures of the Night - A Manchester Morgue Compilation

Here is the second volume of covers, I call it Creatures of the Night. This one is pretty much entirely metal bands doing the covers, save for the Deftones track. They're not very metal. I think that this is the better compilation of the two, hopefully everyone will find something they enjoy.

This cover was from the sixth issue of Vampirella. I love the artwork, but I'm not entirely happy with my small contributions to the cover. I might try and fix it up but I don't know if I'll have time.

Iced Earth - Creatures of the Night (KISS)
Opeth - Would? (Alice in Chains)
Dimmu Borgir - Metal Heart (Accept)
Deceased - 2 Minutes To Midnight (Iron Maiden)
Warrel Dane - Lucretia My Reflection (Sisters of Mercy)
White Zombie - Children of the Grave (Black Sabbath)
Shadows Fall - Welcome To The Machine (Pink Floyd)
Therion - Thor (Manowar)
Heaven Shall Burn - Whatever That Hurts (Tiamat)
Arsis - Roses on White Lace (Alice Cooper)
Bruce Dickinson - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (Black Sabbath)
Emperor - Gypsy (Mercyful Fate)
Edge of Sanity - Blood of my Enemies (Manowar)
Hammerfall - Man On The Silver Mountain (Dio)
Deftones - Simple Man (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
Novembre - The Promise (Arcadia)
Iron Savior - Crazy (Seal)

Download

If you're bored, be sure to check out Space Bastard for a look at some classic Meatloaf and Troma posters.

I Got Erection - A Manchester Morgue Compilation

Here is my newest compilation, the first volume in a two volume (for now) collection of some of my favorite cover songs. I call it I Got Erection - named after a Turbonegro song covered by Satyricon, which is featured in this compilation. I've shortened the RAR name to IGE for anyone here whose wife might be pissed finding a file with Erection in the name.

For the most part these are metal bands doing covers of other hard rock or metal songs (it is still my music of choice, after all) but there are a few rather interesting covers here. Sonata Artica's cover of a Bette Midler Beaches classic, Surf band Gein and the Graverobbers' cover of Iron Maiden's Transylvania, or Children of Bodom's hilarious rendition of Kenny Rogers' Just Dropped In should at least elicit a smile from even the most smug of music fans.

The cover was done using both a Creepy cover (the down-syndrome Lon Chaney Dracula cover) and the moon from a poster for the movie Black Sheep. The vamp's head was actually in the Creepy logo, so I had to get him out of there and improvise on a background. This actually ended up being way more of a pain that I thought as it took forever to find something that actually looked okay behind him. Then there ended up being a lot of wasted space at the top, so I added the Stereotape logo to take care of that.

Here's the tracklist. It goes Band - Song (Original Band/Artist)

Satyricon - I Got Erection (Turbonegro)
Siebenburgen - Animal (Fuck Like A Beast) (W.A.S.P.)
Witchery - Riding On The Wind (Judas Priest)
Sonata Artica - The Wind Beneath My Wings (Bette Midler)
Shadows Fall - December (Only Living Witness)
Children of Bodom - Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In) (Kenny Rodgers)
In Flames - Land of Confusion (Genesis)
To Die For - I Just (Died In Your Arms) (Cutting Crew)
Gein and the Graverobbers - Transylvania (Iron Maiden)
All That Remains - Believe in Nothing (Nevermore)
Galnaryus - Go (Asia)
Sentenced - Digging The Grave (Faith No More)
Dinosaur Jr. - Just Like Heaven (The Cure)
Bella Morte - Earth Angel (The Penguins)
Norther - Final Countdown (Europe)
Wolf - A Dangerous Meeting (Mercyful Fate)
Arch Enemy - The Book of Heavy Metal (Dream Evil)
Dream Evil - Let The Killing Begin (Arch Enemy)
Darkest Hour - Nazi Punks Fuck Off
Cradle of Filth - Hallowed Be Thy Name(Iron Maiden)

Get Erection

Sonata Artica - The Wind Beneath My Wings. While the idea of a power metal band covering Bette is pretty hilarious, what's odd is that this song really songs like it could've been written by and for a power metal band. Not unlike the Helloween song.

In Flames - Land of Confusion. This is a pretty decent cover, but I'd really have liked to hear Soilwork give it a go. Their singer has a considerably better, and less Jonathan Davis-like singing voice.

Galnaryus - Go. An Asian band doing a cover of a song by an English band called Asia.

Cradle of Filth - Hallowed Be Thy Name. The second Maiden cover on this compilation. A lot of people speak harshly of COF. While I'm no huge fan of their more recent output, I'd still consider myself a fan of them overall and I think this cover is pretty outstanding. The vocals could very well ruin it for a lot of people, but the musicianship is top notch in my opinion.

That's it for now, enjoy, and the second volume, Creatures of the Night should be up tomorrow.

A Nightmare On Elm Street - Wildstorm

This is Wildstorm's 8-issue Nightmare on Elm Street series. I posted the 3-issue Paranoid miniseries on the site before, you can find those here.

8 Issues, 87 MB. Credit to the original scanners/uploaders.
Burgers - of the Gods!

Space Bastard - Resurrected

Well, after nearly a year I've finally decided to get my other site (or "blog" - still hate that word) Space Bastard up and running again. I plan on keeping my poster/dvd cover type posts over there, among other things I've yet to decided on.

I've kicked it back off with a collection of Dracula poster sure to illuminate the mind and dazzle the eye. Joe Bob says check it out.

Spun - The Official Unofficial Soundtrack Custom Cover

For some unknown reason Jonas Åkerlund's 2002 film Spun never received an official soundtrack release. Not unlike the film itself, the soundtrack is absolutely chaotic, featuring everything from Zwan (who are called Djali Zwan now?) to Donovan to Satyricon. It even includes a track by Jason Schwartzman's former band Phantom Planet.

Spoof. Dope. Crank. Creep. Bomb. Spank. Shit. Bang. Zip. Tweak.

Macabre Movie Poster Madness - The Hammer Edition

Today, I thought we'd take a look a some Hammer posters. This set is a little one-sided, 80% Dracula, 20% Frank. Rasputin and The Reptile will just have to wait.

Dracula Has Risen From The Grave - This poster is way to cutesy and makes it seem like a wacky comedy - it would've been a great Love At First Bite poster - but something about this poster intrigues me. I think it's the pink band-aids. Yeah, that'll work.

Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell - The top half of this image was featured on my site's most popular banner. In fact, posting this one makes me kinda miss that banner. I lost the original file when I made the old blogger to new blogger transition, but I think I might have to do it over.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula - This stunning Japanese (see, told you they were good) poster would have to be in my top 5 favorite pieces of Hammer artwork. In fact I am in the middle of making a DVD cover using this poster. If it turns out okay, I'm sure I'll probably feature it here at some point.

Dracula AD 1972 - Another brilliant Japaneser here. When I become loaded (in the rich sense, not like drunk loaded) these two are essential purchases for me.

Dracula AD 1972 - Yes, another Drac AD72 poster - titled Dracula 73 on the poster.

I hope everyone is enjoying the new year so far. Things have been okay for me this first week. But I have had two sad losses so far. 1) Taco Bell is no longer making the Volcano Taco. Just as soon as they'd introduced this delightful red-shelled monstrosity to me they've taken it away. This not 3 months after I discover my favorite chips of all time - Fiery Habanero Doritos - have been taken off the market due to poor sales. It's a bad time to be a fan of hot.

2)My Zune has officially bitten the dust. I got a refurbished first generation model on Woot.com for $80. I loved the big bulky brown bastard. I even stuck up for it when people asked "what the hell is that thing, some kind of wallet?" But I'm looking at it right now, completely in pieces after an ill-advised attempt to repair it myself. I knew it was totally dead before I actually opened it up. Otherwise I wouldn't have actually done it. I tried the "open it up, look for something that came uplugged" approach. If it works with my car, why not my Zune? Oh well, I got 15 months out of it, not bad for a refurbished, out of date MP3 player.

As you might've noticed with the semi-frequent posting, I'm trying to get this site up and running properly again. I'm trying to post more, and different kind of stuff to keep the site interesting. I've even got a few little projects for the site I'm working on:
A Double Feature cover song compilation
A New Werewolf compilation (bands who play songs named after movie titles)
An attempt at a Podcast (Idea swiped from Cosmobells) -

The first two things should've been done some time ago, but I'm a slacker, so they are still in the "being worked on" phase. The Podcast, not going too well. I've gotten like 30 minutes, but I'm not happy with it. I like the song choices, not too obvious, but not pretentiously obscure. But it's just not going together too well. I don't know if I'll actually finish this thing up.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Clowns in the Sky Volume 1

This is Clowns in the Sky, a compilation of music from the late, great Mystery Science Theater. 29 Choice cuts of harmonious hilarity from the first 7 seasons of the show.

Volume 2 features music from the 8th and 9th seasons, but it's still available to purchase so I won't be posting that one. But Volume 1 here is listed as "out of print - we're not sure if or when it will be back", so here it is.

Tracklist (with episode titles)

1. Theme Song Version 1A (Seasons 1-5.5 with Joel)
2. My Creepy Girl (Catalina Caper)
3. Godzilla Genealogy Bop (Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster)
4. If Chauffeurs Ruled the World (Ring of Terror)
5. Music from Some Guys in Space (Pod People)
6. Tibby, Oh Tibby (Gamera)
7. The Plate Spinning Song (Gamera vs. Gaos)
8. A Clown in the Sky (Pod People)
9. The Waffle Song (Viking Women and the Sea Serpent)
10. A Patrick Swayze Christmas (Santa Claus Conquers the Martians)
11. Master Ninja Theme Song (Master Ninja I)
12. Tribute to Pants (Hercules Against the Moon Men)
13. Gypsy Rose Me! (The Day the Earth Froze)
14. Kim Cattrall (City Limits)
15. Ode On Estelle (The Magic Sword)
16. Gypsy Moons (Crash of Moons)
17. Hired! Original Broadway Cast (Bride of the Monster)
18. What A Pleasant Journey (The Girl in Lovers Lane)
19. Theme Song Version 2 (Seasons 5.5-6 with Mike)
20. The Janitor Song (Teen-Age Strangler)
21. NummyMuffinCoocolButter (Colossus and the Headhunters)
22. Merry Christmas...If That's OK (Santa Claus)
23. The Greatest Frank Of All (Village of the Giants)
24. Livin' In Deep Thirteen (The Violent Years)
25. Bouncy Upbeat Song (Red Zone Cuba)
26. Whom Shall I Kill? (Samson vs. the Vampire Women)
27. Tubular Boobular Joy (Outlaw)
28. Theme Song Version 3 (Season 7 with Mrs. Forrester)
29. Mighty Science Theater

Pants!

Macabre Movie Poster Madness - American Horror: Japanese Style

I think my favorite country for movie posters just might be Japan. I like posters that are a bit out of the ordinary and Japan can tend to get really out there with their designs. I especially like what they were doing with American horror films in the 70s and 80s. A lot of the time the posters are like very chaotic collages - movie stills, art from other posters for the film, and Japanese characters splattered seemingly randomly around. It's fascinating really, I could look at them for hours.

The Evil Dead. This poster damn near out-kitsches Army of Darkness' Japanese poster. Not nearly as cool as the one for AOD (and really, what could be?), but this thing is still absolutely bananas.

Now a hysterical poster from John Carpenter's Halloween. At first glance, this poster is fairly kick ass. It's simplistic, but very moody and sinister at the same time. But wait! Take a look a Mikey's face. Whoops! I like to imagine this guy was just really blitzed while he was painting this at the last minute, desperate to make a deadline and he just accidentally went a little too "bulgey-eyed puppet man" with his depiction of Michael Myers.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The collage-like design really works quite well here. Like a page from some demented scrapbook that might've been kept on the premises of the Sawyer compound. What all the Japanese stuff would be doing on there, I do not know, but you see what I'm saying.

Re-Animator - A masterful classic, brimming with severed head eroticism. Gotta love the blood splatter to hide Barbara's business. I don't know if that's supposed to be funny, but....

Carrie - I've got no comment on this one, but I figured the post would look odd without something other than the title here.

Zombie Related Injuries or Fatalities

Macabre Movie Poster Madness

Back when I was doing my Space Bastard site one of my favorite things to post was movie posters, of the macabre and horrific variety, usually tied together with some kind of theme. This is also a common practice over at Final Girl - in fact I had called this Macabre Movie Poster Monday until I looked at her site and saw she uses "Awesome Movie Poster Friday". Seemed disrespectful to my fellow Blogger user, stealing the Adjective/Movie Poster/Day of the Week format for a post title, so I've replaced Monday with Madness.

Moving on. Since I enjoy making my own DVD covers I have gathered a decent sized collection of movie poster imagery, I figured I'd throw some up here and see what happens.

Michael Powell's Peeping Tom

Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper (duh)

Mario Bava's Kill Baby Kill

Riccardo Freda/Mario Bava's I, Vampiri

I've saved the strangest for last. This is actually a poster from Night of the Living Dead - as in George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. What a mongloid hand wearing press-on nails (with a bolt, uh, bolted into it, no less) has to do with anything at all I do not know. It has been years since I've actually watched NOTLD, maybe I've forgotten the mongloid hand.

Cinematic Titanic Conquers Santa Claus Conquers The Martians in Electronic Christmas Card Form

Be sure to send one to all the CineTit fans nearest and dearest to you.

Ladies and Gentlemen.....The Fabulous Stains

I've been playing the hell out of this one since I got it about a week ago. This is the soundtrack from the 1981 Ladies and Gentlemen The Fabulous Stains. The film stars Diane Lane as Corrine Burns, founder and head songwriter for the fictional girl band The Stains. It chronicles the rise and very sudden fall in popularity of The Stains - A band not particularly high in talent, Corrine's rants and strange attire still manage to garner the band a small cult following of impressionable teenage girls (see above link, scroll down). The film also stars Ray Winstone as the singer of rival (and actually talented) band The Looters (which, apart from Winstone consists of Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols, and Paul Simenon of The Clash).

Random fact: This film features the first appearance of Queen of No-Budget Schlock Debbie Rochon.

This soundtrack was released with a "Download Only" option on Amazon, then it was almost immediately (within 24 hours or so) pulled from the site for some reason or another. I found it over on Cinemageddon, so credit goes out to the original uploader over there who was quick enough to get it before it disappeared.

There are several highlights on this album, from The Professionals by The Looters to the spiteful cover of The Professionals by The Stains. My personal favorite is a reggae number called Curfew. I don't even like Reggae, but I really love this one.

1. All Washed Up [Rock] - Lawn Boy
2. Professionals - The Looters
3. Roadmap Of My Tears - The Metal Corpses
4. La La La - The Looters
5. Curfew - Lawn Boy
6. Waste Of Time - The Stains
7. All Washed Up [Reggae] - Lawn Boy
8. Professionals - The Stains
9. Don't Blow It All Away - The Looters
10. Conned Again - The Looters
11. Professionals [Video Version] - The Fabulous Stains

Fatal Games - The Second Prize is Death

The bizarre and hilarious 1984 slasher Fatal Games, written by Buñuel (Rafael, that is) and starring women with names like Teal and Spice. The description from the Media VHS cover:

"What is happening at the Falcon Academy of Athletes? One by one the young competitors for the 1984 Olympics are facing a race against death- at the hands of a javelin-hurling madman.

Is potential champion, Annie Rivers, fast enough to outrun the killer and stay alive? She must use every trick and every turn in the book to stay ahead in this deadly game. There can only be one winner in this contest. Only one will finish!"

Yes, you read that correctly, the killer's weapon of choice is a javelin. One of the most impractical weapons of all time - with a minimum length of 260 cm (8 ft 6.25 in) - you've got to admit it's an inventive choice.

Most of the film's running time is pretty standard slasher fare, but like fellow exercise themed slaughter picture Killer Workout Fatal Games goes totally batshit during the final act - making you forget the fairly routine first and second act. If you stick with this one you will be rewarded with a rousing and hysterical final 20 minutes that will leave you breathless and dumbfounded.

Note: The cover above was designed by me using a Blue Underground
template. The cover was made completely for the hell of it. As far as I know
they have no plans of actually releasing Fatal Games.

Mort The Dead Teenager

This is the Marvel mini-series Mort The Dead Teenager. In the first issue Mort Graves is denogginized by a train during a drag racing accident. With the help of Teen Death, Mort gets to see what his world is like without him. Or something like that, I'm not finished with it yet. It lasted for 4 issues in 1993/94, each of which can be downloaded in the link below.

Searching for some information to use for this post I found countless sites mentioning a Tarantino produced film version of Mort that was in development a few years ago. And here I thought Man-Thing was a bit too obscure for someone to try and make into a movie. The only rumored cast member at the time was Jessica Simpson (not as hot as the world thinks, by the way) Presumably she would've been cast as the dumb chick with big cans and not Mort.

Download

Things To Watch For:
Death Rides A Train
Apostrophe S - It's a word
The Lighter Side of Automobile Related Teenage Fatalities
Otto!
Mort Gets A Head of Himself
She's Been De-Feeted!
Yngwie's Brother Yngwe

I Am A Turkey. Kill Me.

Just a quick Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at The Manchester Morgue.

Anyone else a little frightened by this picture? I think the creepy little bastards at the upper left of the dinner table are going to be doing a little carving of their own with the other members of the family in a minute here. Look out.

Night of the Living.....Jews?

Night of the Living Jews is a short (20 Min. or so) zombie comedy that was made in 2007. I have no idea how I hadn't heard of it before now - I must be slipping in my old age. I know a lot of people are probably sick of the low budget funny zombie film, but I personally can't seem to get enough. I haven't watched it NOTLJ yet, but I'm looking forward to it. It looks like it should be rather entertaining, and there is even some pretty striking imagery on display for good measure.

Here's the official synopsis from the Heeb Magazine site:

"On the first night of Passover the residents of a remote Jewish bungalow colony are turned into flesh-eating zombies by matzo with a dark history. In the hunt for human flesh these Hasidic zombies descend on an unsuspecting gentile family in their quiet farmhouse. The loving mother and father and their mischievous son and nubile teenage daughter face an almost certain end until a mysterious stranger miraculously appears to save the day. In Night of the Living Jews you’ll journey through a hellish night of terror, romance and a frighteningly non-kosher diet."

If you're interested in owning a copy, you can pick one up here.

Bill and Ted's Bogus Comic Book Adaptation

Sorry about the lack of posts this past week, I was out of town on a bit of a vacation for the last week or so. But I'm back, and I'd thought I'd start off with a little comic adaptation of my favorite Bill and Ted movie (part 2). It follows the movie pretty closely, but there are a few things that are slightly different. One thing I noticed, they changed Ted saying that heaven was "most atypical" to "most semi-typical", which doesn't sound very funny at all. Or accurate, because the heaven in Bogus Journey was supposed to look a bit different than what we're used to seeing in movies, thus making it atypical, not semi-typical. In fact, I'm not certain semi-typical is even an actual recognized term.

But I won't go any further into that, because I don't think anyone is too worried about it. It's a Bill and Ted comic. If you're bored, this will give you something to read for 20 minutes or so.

Things To Watch For:

James Martin of Faith No More: The Animated...Comic Panel?
Thwarted By The Evil Robot Us's
The Melvining of Death (literally)
Station - Now In Green!
Oh, No, They're Brown Again
Rufus - Spanked with Dog
No Comic Version of Primus? Lame.

Download

You Can't Do That On Television

This is Barth, Alasdair, Alanis, Christine (weird name, right?) and the rest of the gang from the strangest young adult sketch program to ever come out of Canada: You Can't Do That On Television

Nickelodeon announced about a year ago that they would be releasing DVD sets, but I'm pretty sure they decided to drop that idea for whatever reason. It's actually a bit odd considering the show was actually on for a decade. I'm sure it would sell at least as well as Clarissa.

The show is probably best known for the early appearances of one Alanis Morissette. Who ever would've thought that young, half Wolverine/half Fats the Dummy haircut-having Alanis from You Can't Do That On Television would grow up to sell 55 million albums, then star as God in a Kevin Smith movie? I for one, did not see that one coming. She actually wasn't in all that many episodes, but I did include two of hers here today. She's in Parties (anyone?) and IRONICALLY* she's also in the Pop Music episode. Well, I guess that's more coincidental than ironic, really. Oh well, I'm not changing it.

I'd go into more detail aboot the show, but YCDTOTV.com has everything you could possibly ever need to know about the show. Including current photos of many of the 100+ cast members who appeared on the show over the years.

Things To Watch For:

Adolescent Assassination Attempts
Alasdair - He Wears Short Shorts
Blurring the line between "secrect admirer" and "stalker"
Introducing the Trapezoidal Hitler Mustache
Phytophilous Principal
Barthy Burgers - Still better than Friday's
The Bus Driver With The Sgt. Slaughter Shades
The Monocle - The Unicycle of Eyeglasses
Naked Boys and Priest jokes: The Early Years
Meatballs: Canadian Style. Oh wait....
Dave Was....Her?
Alasdair - Bondage fan?
The Green Slimes - Hey, at least they're better than Nickelback
Boombox of The Gods

The 3 B's : Black Sabbath, the Blue Oyster Cult, and the B52s

*Sorry.

Brian May - Dr. Giggles

Well, it's Halloween, and what better way to celebrate than with the score from the horror classic Dr. Giggles (real name, Doctor Rendell). Okay, certainly not a classic but I do think that while it lacks in quality, it makes up for it by being really, really odd. It's so full of inventive gore scenes and terrible zingers that on some level it's hard for me to dislike it.

The score was done by Brian May (not the guy from Queen). One year prior to scoring Dr. Giggles he worked on the equally bizarre Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Another movie I really enjoy despite it's best efforts to prevent me from doing so.

1. Dr. Giggles (05:21)
2. Tivoli Street (03:01)
3. Re-Opening Case (02:37)
4. The Doctor's In (01:54)
5. The Gentle Blue Pill (04:07)
6. The Cops Search (02:18)
7. Jenny Talks To Max (00:47)
8. We Are What We Eat (01:44)
9. A Heart Problem (01:49)
10. Mirror Maze (04:32)
11. Magruder's Flashback (04:04)
12. Doctor Heal Thyself (04:36)
13. Have A Heart (03:54)
14. The Rescue (03:02)
15. Fight And Flight (05:39)
16. He's Not Dead (04:36)

If you're wondering, I think Giggle would have to be the 3rd worst word for laugh, right behind Chortle and Guffaw.