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.

H!TITDS - Episode #65 - Interview with Mike Sandlin of Grindhouse Video

I swung by Grindhouse Video here in the Tampa and spoke to the owner, Mike Sandlin. Since this is a podcast, I recorded it! Mike is a good dude and we had a great discussion. Please listen and try not to talk over us until the interview is over. Thank you!

Listen here.

Or Listen/Download here.

More about Grindhouse Video right here!

Grindhouse Video [Tampa]

Some kind soul on The Facebook invited me to like a place right here in Tampa called Grindhouse Video. It didn't take me long to get off my butt and go investigate. Like most things in Tampa, Grindhouse Video is awesome! It is a small store next to a comic book shop/record store and a barber shop. What more could you possibly ask for? Mike, the owner, was there to tell us about the shop and be very friendly. He said, "How many stores can you walk into that are playing Fright Night 2? And on VHS?" Seriously though, how many? Now when I say it's a small store, don't think it's not packed with gory goodness. Here are just a few titles that I saw: August Underground's Penance, The Manson Family, Horror House on Highway 5, Countess Dracula, Faces of Death III, Graduation Day, etc. Of course, it's not all horror. GV caters to all your cult movie needs (including but not limited to screwball comedies, action, and kung-fu). Seriously. I highly recommend this place!

The Grindhouse Video Facebook page. LIKE IT!

Please note: I only photographed half the store! Not pictured: the Blu-ray section, the boxsets, and much more!

Video Flyer

My band GYROJETS is playing this Saturday. So I made this:

Sir Walter Hopechest

I used an old Panasonic VHS camcorder to shoot this music video. I hope you enjoy.

Not Franco Friday

Well yeah, this ain't Franco Friday but I did get something cool in the mail.

Franco Friday #35: Erotikill

Franco Friday #35: Erotikill

Two weeks in a row? I hope this means I’m back into the swing of things. I’ve had Female Vampire in my pile of Franco for a long, long time. After a few aborted attempts to review it, I gave up. Then some kind soul put the VHS version, called Erotikill up on Youtube (sorry, Redemption, your Blu-ray is not on my shortlist). When I realized that this version was over 30 minutes shorter than the Female Vampire cut, well, I just had to go for it. Haven’t I seen enough of these extended lesbian and simulated bonking scenes? Here’s a hint: YES! So, dear reader, here is me taking the sting out and just pretending that this is the only version available.



Erotikill
AKA Female Vampire
Directed by Jess Franco
1973
Starring Lina Romay, Jack Taylor, Alice Arno, Monica Swinn, Jess Franco, Anita Watican
72 minutes (VHS version)

The Countess Irina Karlstein (played by Lina Romay) walks out of the mist, eyes sunken, breasts not sunken, wearing only a belt and a cape. The camera zooms to her PUBIC REGION then back up to her face. Then the Countess proceeds to walk into the camera lens. Poetry? Comedy? All I know is that an actress couldn’t ask for a better entrance than that. She goes to a farm in this getup, seduces a simpleton, and bites his neck. His strangely guttural cry can be heard miles away by Baron von Rathony (played by the brooding mustache of Jack Taylor). Suddenly, the Countess flaps her cape and flies away. Scree! Scree! Woosh!



We are briefly introduced to Inspector Idiot and Dr. Robertson (played by Jess Franco). He tells the inspector that the murder victim was killed during orgasm and was drained of blood and semen. Gee, I thought the Countess only bit that dude’s neck. She’s amazing! It’s almost like this version of the film is missing something. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, we see that this lady vampire likes to sunbathe, in the nude? No, actually fully clothed. Haven’t you read your vampire lore?



So my favorite scene of this entire movie happens when Anna (played by Anna Watican), an intrepid reporter, approaches the Countess for an interview. Of course, she agrees and they go sit in a hotel room to talk (one-sided, of course). For what feels like hours (oh God, I wish!), Anna interviews the mute vampire. This is seriously the best interview of a mute character ever filmed. Next, the Countess writhes around on a bed while her mute servant (good old Luis Barboo) smiles, appreciating every moment. The Countess decides to kill the hotel masseuse and she hypnotizes him by flashing her vagina at him over and over and over and over and over.



Frustrated by trying to convince Inspector Idiot that vampires exist, Dr. Roberts meets up with Dr. Orloff. He’s the blind son of an old colleague, eh? Very interesting. The Countess shows up in Anna’s hotel room and licks her lips and touches herself (while fully clothed) for a while, driving Anna mad with desire. Then she leaves Anna horny, totally unfulfilled, and crying in torment. Ha ha! She comes back after a costume change and then kills Anna. That makes everything all better, doesn’t it?



The Baron finally meets the Countess. He asks her if she will one day take him with her behind the mist. I drop my pen (what did you think I was holding?) and just stare at the screen, entranced. This movie just got to me. Next, Alice Arno and Monica Swinn magically appear in the film, playing Yahtzee, and waiting for The Countess to appear. She does and the two of them show her just how they treat their guests. Nakedness, shackles, and a very thick, sharp switch are utilized in their games. After some bloody whipping, the Countess calls bullshit, hypnotizes Arno, and then drinks Swinn dry. All the while, the soundtrack drops out, making the whole scene very uncomfortable; like it was totally unplanned.



The Baron admits that he has a mega-crush on the Countess. They kiss and she’s like “No! Go away! You’re too vanilla. And I’ll drink your mustache!” Look, she’s mute, I have to ad lib. They kiss again, they screw, and she kills him. She gets a little bummed out and tells Dr. Orloff that she wants all vampires to go away forever or something. Then she takes a bath in some bloody bathwater, writhes around, and then arches her back in order to shove her PUBIC REGION into the air repeatedly. Dr. Robertson shows up, kills her manservant, and then watches her drown in the bloody bathwater. Maybe. They show her walking around in the mist some more so who the fuck knows?



I don’t know what cracks me up more, the barely competent as well as successfully hilarious dubbing or the Peanuts-like jazz that plays through some of these scenes. The rest of the score is snippets of haunting melodies and classical yearnings. As for the dubbing, everyone involved is reading off the most banal claptrap ever written without missing a beat. The dude who dubbed Jack Taylor is the worst though. His accent is almost impenetrable. Lina Romay is lucky that her character is mute but not even she can escape the cheesed out voice-acting. Her internal monologues are delivered by a melodramatic robot.



I’m not going to lie to you, I love Erotikill. It has a few slow spots but I fell deeply for this very flawed gem. All of the shit that is wrong with this version just works perfectly for me. Lina Romay was very amateurish as an actress at this point in her career but she was also a mesmerizing weirdo (as always) so this film is perfect for her with the muteness and the nudeness. Her breasts almost steal the movie. I can wholeheartedly recommend Erotikill to anyone who likes watching Jess Franco movies with all of the boning cut out and presented in a pitifully cropped full frame transfer. One day, if I ever give a double damn, I might sit down and give the Female Vampire cut another go.

“You can well listen: I am quite sane. And I state that this murder is surrounded by a mystery that is not easy to elucidate.”

“But what you say is more than terrifying. The demons must be killed. And it must be forever.”

eBay Made My Day

My Childhood Showed Up In The Mail

http://doomedmoviethon.com/articles/say_uh_phenomena.htm

By the way, I am reevaluating the 82 minute cut.

VHS Covers of Doom - Part 5

While I'm doing all this VHS tape slingin' on eBay, I have been thinking about the VHS tapes whose covers were, for one reason or another, just so terrifying that I never could muster up the courage to rent. Some of these are pretty obvious but others might need a bit of explaining.



This is pretty obvious. Yeah, I didn't see Blood Feast until I was in my 20s.



I had completely forgotten about Grotesque until the DVD came out recently.  This is such gorgeous artwork though it does look more like a horror fiction book cover than a VHS. All I know for sure is that my youthful fright came back very strong. I kept my distance from this tape.



I was scared of Junior and I never rented it. The reason being that I imagined that the wood that the chainsaw is cutting through was flesh. Why? I don't know. I just did. The thought of all that carnage (which probably isn't in the film) just made me feel queasy. 



These two effective covers, one for Scared Stiff and one for Humongous and they are both pretty obvious as to why they were too much for me. Scary faces! I think Humongous is more brilliant because it hides what is likely something very much like the image on Scared Stiff. 





After I saw both Jaws and Jaws 2 on television, it was over for me and shark films. O-V-E-R. The artwork for this cover for Up From the Depths was obviously inspired by the burned face of the shark in Jaws 2. Seriously though, this is one crunked up undersea beast! That was more than enough for me and I never watched this film.

More VHS covers of doom!

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The Moviethon Vlog Episode #3: VHS Haul

New Items At The Store

You know what, it's Monday. Worse than that? It feels like Monday. You should do some shopping! I'm still parting with my VHS collection 5 items per week but I am going to diversify a little bit. I found some cool stuff that I totally forgot about. Keep checking on the store. As for all the tapes, I test them myself. If you have any questions about items or whatever. Or if you want me to shut the hell up and stop trying to sell you stuff, just let me know. Later!

Oldsmar Flea Market VHS Raid

The weather was beautiful today. Good thing because it took us 3 hours to get through the entire flea market. Every VHS store had a copy of Xanadu. I made the guy selling coins really mad when I asked about his guitar pedal. Things didn't get weird until we saw this:





Acquisitions (top to bottom):

Riders of the Storm
Curse of the Blue Lights
Deadly Harvest
House/House II
Distortions
Bride of Re-Animator
Horrible Horror (Hosted by Zacherley)
Wanted Dead or Alive (Rutger Hauer)
The Alchemist
Scared Stiff

This is Horror Redux

I have talked about this BEFORE. But now I own a little piece of the puzzle.

I cannot stress how important This is Horror AKA Stephen King's World of Horror was to my burgeoning horror movie fandom. This show was stretched out over several Saturday nights on MTV (it was on before Headbangers Ball if I recall correctly). My curiosity about the genre had already been stoked by Elvira, Commander USA, Jason, and Freddy. This is Horror gave me some direction. The next time I was at the video store (Video-X-Tron had already been bought out by Blockbuster by then) but they still had a good selection. I beheld the horror aisle and I made the proclamation that I would watch every single horror movie in the store.







Most irritatingly, I haven't found the entire series yet. Apparently, it was on Japanese laserdisc at one point but all I have right now is this one VHS tape. First things first, the whole description on the back of the box is bullshit. The description might be for the entire series but the person buying this one tape is in for something slightly different.


When it comes to converting old VHS to DVD-R, this is my favorite company.


Nice use of the killer in Phenomena there. Or just a major spoiler.


Stephen King comes off a little ridiculous here.


Argento is also just a tad wound up.

I am shocked by how much Dario Argento is on this tape. Most (if not all) of the footage of the "Italian Hitchcock" comes from the Michele Soavi directed documentary, Dario Argento's World of Horror. This is quite interesting for me because it seems as though this may have been the impetus for me to seek out old Dario. So this show might have been why I marched into the video store and demanded me some Creepers. My last post shed some light on this confusing moment.


The joke's on us. These frames are back in style now.

There's some talk with director Brian Yuzna and special effects designer Steve Johnson. There's lots of good stuff here. I'm glad that films of my youth like the very disturbing Society and the very fun Dead Heat were mentioned. There's a weak and rather half-assed section on vampire movies. They show clips from Vampyres which was very surprising (never found that one on VHS as a kid!), the comedic vampire scenes from The House that Dripped Blood, and friggin' Vamp which I can remember renting but still can't remember a single scene from.


I'm sure this looked much funnier on paper.

So yeah, there you go. That pretty much sums up what is on the tape. I finally got a little tiny slice of what was an extremely influential part of my growing up. All of this took place in Jupiter, Florida so you can imagine how important having a world of fantasy to escape to was for me at the time. I was not what you would call a popular kid so many of my weekends were spent alone in front of the TV with the VCR buzzing away. Horror movies were my best buds and they continue to warm my heart even after all these years.

Well jeez, Christmas Eve is upon me and here I am babbling about my childhood again. Have a nice holiday everyone. I'll try to post some more cool stuff before the end of the year but you know how it is. Maybe I'll do some obnoxious "unboxing" videos on Youtube. I may only get a few pairs of socks this year but I know I can count on you to be interested in them. I leave you all with some cool stuff that didn't appear on my tape:

VHS Covers of Doom - Part 4

VHS Covers of Doom Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.



Some things are becoming clear to me. As some of you may remember, for a very long time, Dario Argento's Phenomena was my favorite horror movie of all time. I spent a fair bit of time thinking about it. I really never put much thought into how that movie entered my life. It was just there. However, while I've been sorting through my strangely disjointed childhood horror movie memories, something revelatory happened. I remember very distinctly going straight to my local video store looking for Creepers, the truncated form of Phenomena. I found it, rented it, and there you go, end of story, right? WRONG, duder, WRONG!

The night I rented The Creepers, I was supposed to be renting Creepers. Since I was such a young idiot, I didn't know anything about anything and rented a totally different film. So I'm sitting there in my room, watching schoolgirls getting sexually assaulted and strangled by a madman (who I thought was French) and I kept thinking "This ain't right, y'all. This very, very ain't right at all, damn it!" The next day, I took the tape back and was able to get Creepers. Finally, I was able to witness my first Dario Argento film.

But wait, there's more! Man, this is boring. Anyway, not only had I found out that I did not enjoy watching women being raped; I also discovered my first taste of Euro-sleaze. Thank you, The Creepers AKA In the Devil's Garden AKA Assault AKA Say Goodbye to Your Innocence, Richard. But wait, didn't I get a free rental out of it? That's true, I did. Okay folks, my memory is coming to life here. The Creepers was in the Creepers box at the store. So I got to rent the proper film for free AND I'm totally blameless for the mishap. This is my primal scream therapy. AWOOOOOOO!

So there you go. Forget everything you know about how I came to find the magic that is Phenomena. Seriously, forget it. I did. Gee, do you think something may have led me to go searching for Creepers in the first place? Could it have been a little something called Stephen King's World of Horror AKA This is Horror? OMG! Will I be talking about that very program at length this month? ROFL! Thanks, this has been very fun.

At The Big Top

Last weekend, Nafa and I raided the Big Top Flea Market which I honestly think has seen better days. Now don't get me wrong, it's still the same in many ways, it's just that I've been visiting this flea market for about 12 years now. The comic book duder is gone and the old guy with all the awesome DVDs (TONS of Anchor Bay) is gone too. Even the toy lady is gone. She had action figures and dolls of nearly every conceivable pop culture thing. And she was really nice. Unfortunately, the creepy anime guy is still there. His booth is mostly Avatar and Dragon Ball Z stuff now.

However, there are still lots of goodies to be found. There is still a big DVD selection if you snoop around enough but VHS tapes are getting more and more rare. I was lucky to find a really nice copy of Humanoids From the Deep but the tape itself was beyond help. Oh well, at least I can display the case somewhere. Nafa and I got some sketchy hotdogs from the food court and wandered around this friggin' huge place. After a couple of hours, I managed to fill a grocery bag with 8 movies. And everything was a dollar apiece. Fantastic!

So anyway, here's my haul: