My Horror Shelfie 32 - From Hercules in the Haunted World to House of Clocks

My Horror Shelfie 25 - My Giallo Collection Part 3

Once again I have talked to and with a camera.

My Horror Shelfie 24 - My Giallo Collection Part 2

 

My Horror Shelfie 23 - Giallo Collection Part 1

Howdy there. I got sort of smart and decided to jump the gun on discussing my entire giallo collection. Here's the first part of what will likely be a five part series. It is possible that I have many gialli on DVD and Blu-ray. I hope you have fun watching this. Stay tuned for more AKA please like and subscribe (yuck, who says that crap?)!

Review Roundup!

Howdy, y'all. I hope you are doing well, my friends. In a brazen attempt to make the bloggin' happen, here are some recent-ish reviews I've done for my favorite site EuroCultAV.com. All of these releases are pretty freakin' amazing. And who knows? Maybe some of these slipped under or over your radar. So please take care and check out my worldlings!

Treasure of the Ninja

Devil's Advocates: Daughters of Darkness

House of Wax

The Dead Zone

The Stylist

Irezumi

All-American Murder 

Love After Death 

The Fear 

Rush Week 

Last Gasp

The Brides of Dracula 

The Beast Must Die 

Demonia 

The Caller 

Pandemonium

Aenigma

Mikey

Fulci for Fake

Wednesday Ramble: Revisiting The Vibe

 

I get The Vibe (AKA that Euro-horror vibe) a lot from Italian and Spanish horror where they frame the characters in certain ways or have this perfectly plain location that is rendered terrifying or haunting just by the way the filmmakers choose to light it. The composers have a lot to do with it as well. Morricone, Nicholai, Cipriani, Pisano, etc. Their music, especially the prettier melodies, juxtaposed with the promise of the upcoming horrors are also effective at giving me the same feeling.  Of course, huge credit goes to the writers and directors of these films because without their stories and direction, I'd never have discovered all of this dark joy.

I often struggle to describe the feeling I get from these films. But the Vibe-y sensation is a melancholic invigoration, a creepy floating sensation, or a caffeine rush of morbidity. It's definitely a sharpening of the senses with a big dash of euphoria thrown in. Usually, I find myself creepily smiling, cackling, or just tearing up when The Vibe hits me right. There aren't any specific films where The Vibe is throughout the whole movie. However, there are a few examples where large sections of the film do the trick though. The House by the Cemetery, Phenomena, Death Smiles at Murder, Anthropophagus, Lisa and the Devil, Vampyros Lesbos, and Horror Rises from the Tomb, just to name a few, are great providers of The Vibe.

I try not to repeat myself too much on this blog. Ha ha! Yeah, right! But I was having a convo with a friend about this subject and wanted to post the above paragraphs without looking at my original post on the subject from 11 years ago. So I guess this is kind of a mission statement for what I look for when I'm going into a film from this era/these countries. I will likely come back to this topic in another decade or so.

Zombie Movies

Partly due to the passing of the great George Romero and partly due to a discussion with my pal, the great Simon (Creatures of Light and Darkness), I have compiled a list of my favorite zombie movies. As I was talking with Simon, the list kept growing, especially after he sent me his and I was like "oh snap, I'll steal pretty much all of these, thank you". Then the Wiki happened and then my meager list began to morph into its very own horde of the hungry dead. I'm not going to bother with that whole "so what is the appeal of the zombie film?" pontification paragraph. Let's just get rad.

Night of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead (1990)
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
The House by the Cemetery
Zombi 2
Zombi 3
Horror Rises from the Tomb
City of the Living Dead
White Zombie
Planet Terror
Zombi Holocaust
Dawn of the Dead
Vengeance of the Zombies
Tombs of the Blind Dead
Cemetery Man
Bio Zombie
The Hanging Woman
Nightmare City
Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror
Dead Alive
Resident Evil (franchise)
Re-Animator
Bride of Re-Animator
The Living Dead Girl
Night of the Creeps
Return of the Living Dead
The Fog
Messiah of Evil
The Beyond
Mutant
Horror Express
Zeder
Pontypool
Day of the Dead
Oasis of the Zombies
House of the Dead
Grapes of Death
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies
Shock Waves

You're Never Nothing

My band GYROJETS has been around for five years now. We're Tampa's premiere realistic music duo. What is realistic music? I always thought it was funny that bands were so obsessed with what genre they fell into like "post-rock", "screamo", or "reggae thrash" so I just came up with my own genre called "realistic music". At first when I told people that, Sam (the drummer and co-vocalist) would intervene and explain what kind of music we actually were. But now he's sipped upon all the varieties of Hooves Kool-Aid-flavored Slurpees and now tells people that we're realistic music as well. Over at the music blog I contribute to, I selected some bands that influenced me. Check it out!

Sam and I met six years ago on a video shoot and then through a conversation on Facebook, I found out that he played drums. We started jamming soon after and it was obvious that we had a good vibe between the two of us. Our musical interests are all over the place -dare I say, wildly divergent- but there's a common ground sonically which is the glue that keeps our soul-brains stuck together. We are friends first and bandmates second which I think is extremely important. We spend more time talking at band practice then actual practice.

After a few random nights of jamming, we decided to give our duo a name. The names that didn't make the cut are as follows: Only Nero, Faux City Locals, Rigid Parts, Nock Volley, and Proud Papa. In desperation, none of these seemed quite right, so I thought, "What are the worst firearms in history?" Sure enough, the Gyrojet was on every list and they certainly looked ridiculous enough. Thus, GYROJETS were born. We've tried to invent a world where things like haunted pizza exist alongside cat-snakes and toothpaste toast and according to my notes, we've been wildly successful.

Want to hear all of this excitement? Check out our album on Amazon or Spotify! It's great. We worked really hard on You're Never Nothing by recording everything ourselves and begging, pleading, and also asking my wife LeEtta to draw the cover and inner CD artwork for us. That's right, I said CD (Compact Disc)! This is the 1990s and it's still a viable format. Anyway check out my wife's artwork on her site.

So what does any of this have to do with movies? I'll tell you! We have a song about a very special character from Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery called "Ann the Babysitter". But wait there's more! We also have a song about VHS tapes and an accompanying video that you should check out below. I also threw in a recent live clip. We played at a club famous for its beer and brownies. And hey screw it, there's another live clip just for fun in there too.

Fulci on the Big Screen!

In the fall of 2011, I saw on some website or other that Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (1979) was going to be making the rounds at theaters around the country. This news flipped me the fuck out. The thought of seeing The Fulch on the big screen really had me chomping at the bit. The closest that Fulci’s classic was playing to LeEtta and I was in St. Petersburg at a place I didn’t even know existed called the Beach Theatre (now closed, apparently). It was our anniversary so we decided to take a couple days off and stay at a hotel near the theater as well as attend the screening.

We arrived at the Beach Theatre about 5 hours early for the show just so I could scope the place out. I was a nervous wreck just expecting the whole night to be a disaster so this was the only way I could calm down with so long to wait for the movie. Then LeEtta found a little German restaurant that was completely empty save for us. The sole waitress was really confused by our presence and handed us the menus with much trepidation. We made her at ease once we started ordering some of the more traditional German items off the menu. The poor thing was probably hoping we’d bail after getting a look at the selections. We had a great time.

Even after eating our scrumptious meal, there was still a lot of time before the movie so we walked around St. Pete and hit up an ice cream store as it was closing. Outside the theater, I saw a guy in a horror movie t-shirt and started up a convo with him. He was a really nice guy and I feel kind of bad because I can’t recall his name. Sorry, duder. Message me!

When it was time for the film to start, we went in and I was a little bummed that the whole event wasn’t better attended. Don’t get me wrong, the Beach Theatre (which opened in 1940) couldn’t have held a massive crowd but only about half of the seats in the theater were filled. We picked our seats and we were immediately struck at what terrible shape they were in. The armrest between LeEtta and I broke off and she spent some time trying to put it back into place.

The moment that made me realize that the year was 2011 and not 1979 was when the movie started on the big screen but it was over a minute into the film. The projectionist tried to start the film over and that’s when the Blu-ray player’s menu flashed on the screen. My heart sunk. I guess you could call me naïve but I was pretty shocked that I was going to be seeing Zombi 2 from a goddamn Blu-ray and not on actual film. All bitching aside, the movie looked AMAZING on the big screen and this is one of the moments that convinced me to buy my first Blu-ray player.

The crowd was pretty sedate. No one dressed up like zombies and no one came in smoking pipes full of maggots or anything. There was one guy who showed up drunk with his lady friend. He was tall and lanky and made a big public display of affection for his poor companion as though someone there was questioning his sexuality. They served beer at the Beach Theatre and he was partaking.

When the big splinter to the eye scene happened, this loud goofus started cheering and drunkenly clapping. He was actually offended when he looked around and no one else was going along with him. It just wasn’t the crowd for that and I didn’t hold that against him. Before the end of this movie, he had to leave very quickly nearly falling over several times while his girlfriend ran alongside trying to steady him. I’m probably lucky that he didn’t puke or fall right on top of me.

When all is said and done, seeing Zombi 2 on a big screen with a modest-sized crowd was a huge deal even taking my minor complaints into account. Much like my lame Dawn of the Dead experience, the use of a DVD or Blu-ray for a film screening seemed like this huge letdown at first. But you know what? The power of the films I love transcend millennial disappointment. The miasma of horror that Fulci has shoved into the eye sockets of film audiences can be delivered by a laser very efficiently.

Here's my old (and 50 pounds heavier) vlog about the event.

Three New Episodes!

Hello! Have you been listening to Hello! This is the Doomed Show lately? Damn yo. We be podcastin'. Brad and I talk about Lucio Fulci's Aenigma. Jeffrey and I talk about the almost forgotten oddity, Sex, Demons, and Death (AKA Diabolicamente... Letizia). But that's not all! Scott MacDonald of EurocultAV.com stopped by to talk about David Cronenberg's Shivers with me. It was pretty awesome.

So kick back, relax, or don't relax, eat something healthy like fruit, break out the chess set, and listen to some men talking!

Look at this busy art I made.

GYROJETS LIVE AT THE BUNKER

Hey gang. My band played a show last weekend. Here's the entire set. We play some Lucio Fulci-related rock and rock. "Ann The Babysitter" is the second song we played. Hope you dig it. Happy f%$king Monday.

GYROJETS - The Hooves EP

So my band, GYROJETS, has some new music! If you glance casually (or glare sinisterly) at the track-listing you will see a song called "Ann The Babysitter". It's about Ann the Babysitter from Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery. As fans of Italian horror well know, Ania Pieroni is one of the most bewitching faces in the genre. It's no surprise that her confusing character in my favorite horror movie of all time would inspire a song. I even snuck in some dialog bits from my VHS tape at the beginning. BAM!

Listen/download here.

I will accept videos or pictures of you dancing to the songs in the comments below.

H!TITDS - Episode #66 - Manhattan Baby

Oh snap. We got nudes episode. Oops, I mean new episode. We'll do the nudes episode another time.

Listen here.

Check out the archives

H!TITDS Episode #63 - Troy Howarth Interview!

Well, hold me down and call me Charles or Rachel. For the very first interview on Hello! This is the Doomed Show, I talk to Troy Howarth, author of The Haunted World of Mario Bava and the upcoming books: So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films and Splintered Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films. It's a good time listen. You should always listen to Hello! This is the Doomed Show. I'm not kidding. Listen to the interview right here! or download it right here!

Be sure to check out Troy's excellent book on Mario Bava and keep an eye out for information on his new books here and here.

And go right here to get Splintered Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films in hardcover!

Ann (The Babysitter)

My band GYROJETS has a new song called "Ann (The Babysitter)". It's about Ann (played by the lovely Ania Pieroni) from Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery, my favorite film of all time. We're still learning the song so it's a little rough and it may get a tad different* but I thought you Eurohorror fanatics might enjoy this recording from last Sunday night.

*I'm going to try and squeeze an Oak Mansion reference in there somewhere.

Top 10 Post-1974 Gialli

Even though the giallo genre continues, albeit very shakily, to this day, I've always felt that the boom was OVER by 1974. I'm not happy about that but I find the gialli post-boom era extremely interesting. Some territories must have been craving bloody mystery films or else these films would have stopped forever. Here's a list that I threw together because lists are the essence of blogging.

10. A Blade in the Dark (1982)

“This is all the whiskey that you possess?” is my favorite line from a giallo ever and that alone lands this film on my list, even if it is the last spot. Lamberto Bava (or “Lambava” as Brad and I call him) really nailed this claustrophobic, atmospheric, incredibly violent, and wacky film. The English dubbing is gloriously cheesy and all of the female characters are weirdos. The score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis is ethereal and haunting. What keeps this film so low on my list here is that it is definitely a little too long at 109 minutes.

9. Trauma (1993)

Of course, I already know that I’m going to be putting too much of one director on this friggin’ list, I A lot of people dog this movie but I straight up love it. Argento’s second attempt at conquering the American market (the first being Two Evil Eyes) certainly worked on me as a teenage person. I found this film haunting and thoroughly strange and in some ways it still is. In other ways, it is insanely stupid and melodramatic to the point of hilariousness. The whole bit about anorexia will have you shaking your head at this film’s clumsy attempts at tackling a serious issue. I’m not sure if I can recommend this film to you unless you are 16 years old and me. You have to be me.

8. Trhauma (1980)

This is a strange, slasher-esque, and rather obscure one that Brad recommended to me and I was glad when I finally got around to it. This one really gets under your skin and features some excellent disco music and oddball characters. You will probably be scratching your head just like I was by the incredibly abrupt ending. At only 78 minutes, you can’t go wrong with a bunch of strange dudes and gorgeous actresses being stalked in a creepy old house. I can’t wait to re-watch Trhauma. Yep, that’s how they spell it.

7. The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)

When it comes to baffling movies, you would be hard pressed to find one more outrageously bizarre than what I consider Argento’s last truly great film to date. I will never forget being totally floored and genuinely shocked by The Stendhal Syndrome when I first saw it many years ago. I went into it only having seen a couple of Argento’s films and oh man, I was totally unprepared for this insanity. An incredible score by Ennio Morricone coupled with intensely beautiful and wildly brutal visuals make for a wonderful mix. I suggest multiple viewings of this one.

6. Autopsy (1975)

Mindbendingly sleazy and obsessively morbid describe this piece of really well made trash. Mimsy Farmer, Ray Lovelock, and Barry Primus in a sicko love triangle that makes me want to wash my hands just from typing about it. Solar flares, mass suicides, dead bodies, an 8mm porn collection, a Death Museum, racecars, a pervert with a limp (a limp what?), pseudoscience, and undead hallucinations are just parts that make this a crazy whole bunch of crazy crazy CRAZY CRA- Sorry, must be those solar flares.

5. The Psychic (1977)

When it comes to Fulci’s masterpieces, this is Fulci’s masterpiece. As you probably have already suspected, I am a fan of Lucio Fulci and his gialli are very near and very dear to me. If you’ve only seen the director’s gorier efforts like The Beyond or City of the Living Dead, then you absolutely must behold this masterful giallo. This film is a death circle that just keeps going around and around and around and the music by Bixio/Frizzi/Tempera is some next level shit. You gotta get on this.

4. Murder Obsession AKA Murder Syndrome (1980)

Oh Riccardo Freda, you magical bastard! I didn’t even realize this was a giallo until my third viewing. There is so much gothic freakiness packed into this little gem that I was just bewildered. The more I watch Murder Obsession, the happier I become in my life. Anita Strindberg’s last movie? And it’s a doozy too. Fake bats, fake spiders, out-of-body experiences, a chainsaw, ghostly recordings, religious symbolism, Laura Gemser (not my cup of tea but you know, whatever), a Satanic cult, adultery, etc. Get off your ass right now and then go and sit on your ass and watch this movie.

3. Eyeball (1975)

When someone says to you, “What in the damn hell fuck is a giallo, anyway?” Show them this film. I can’t stress enough how important this film is for genre fans. If you only ever watch one giallo then make it this one. I’m serious. Umberto Lenzi made an entertaining, trashy (but not sleazy), and goofy movie that gets better with every viewing and is just fun to watch with giallo-newbs. I still prefer Seven Bloodstained Orchids but this is a very close second. Where the hell is the Blu-ray?

2. The House with Laughing Windows (1976)

Don’t even get me started with this one. If anyone talks any smack about Pupi Avati, I swear I will pull a knife and start some shit. When it comes to injecting some class into a classless genre, look no further than this film (or –sigh- Short Night of the Glass Dolls (if you insist)). The dread packed into every frame of this lush period piece never fails to have me on the edge of my seat. Art and the obsessive search for the truth aren’t just themes in this film, they are cosmic forces playing against the main character and it is a horrible joy to watch. Brilliant.

1. Tenebre (1982)

I’m kind of surprised to see this at the number one spot on my list. I’ve never cared for this movie. It is too sedate, too artless, too generic. Of course, I’m kidding. Argento got cold feet and decided to screw his fans out of a Three Mothers film (for 27 years) after Suspiria and Inferno by dropping this giallo bombshell on the world. If you wanted to say something to the effect of: the genre died here. Go on, you can say it. Argento straight up killed it to death with Tenebre. This film is truly deranged and over-the-top. Tenebre will trample you with style and leave you wanting more. I need to watch this again right now.

H!TITDS Episode #54 - In Person

Because we'd feel really stupid if we didn't do it, Brad and I recorded a brief episode of the show since we were in the same room together. How did it go? Fucking awesome! Partly because it is and also partly because we live 750+ miles away from each other. Check it out here!

Check out our archived episodes!

HDS #28 - Fulci Part 3 - The Non-Horror Films

Brad and I continue obsessively talking about Lucio Fulci for our third episode on that crazy guy. This time around, we discuss his non-horror films such as Young Dracula, The Maniacs, and Contraband - just to name a few. Give this one a listen and you might just discover a side to Fulci you didn't even know existed. I know we did! Check out the archives right here.

Can Anyone Identify This Music?

Hey gang. I finally watched my Vestron VHS of House by the Cemetery and I immediately noticed something odd about it. The music on the opening credits is different. It sounds very familiar. Can anyone identify this:

eBay Made My Day