Films I Watched: July 2016

* means "First Time Viewing"

A Black Veil for Lisa
Parasite Eve*
Fantasia*
Hush*
Let Us Prey*
Rider of the Skulls*
Miami Golem*
Hardware
The Women (1939)*
Real Genius
The Boy*
Scanners
Kiss Me Deadly
Sin City
Suture*
The Boy Who Cried Werewolf*
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
The Dark Knight Returns*
Escape from New York
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice*
Django
Star Trek: Into Darkness
Seven Notes in Black
Watch Me When I Kill
White Christmas
Avengers
Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Perfume of the Lady in Black
The Shining
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky
Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41*
Blood and Black Lace
Blade Runner

Cinema Somnambulist: THE BOOK

Get your copy today, y'all!

Kindle version!

Wednesday Ramble: Movie Memory Mining

While I continue to mine the depths of my memory (without leaving any reliable support beams or adhere to any safety regulations as I go), it dawned on me to try and recall what my very first memories of watching movies are. The first film that I have a very tenuous memory of catching in theater is The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Since I was only four when that film was first released, it was likely during its 1981 or 1982 re-release. This sticks out for me because I remember being really confused how the empire was able to reattach Darth Vader's head after Luke cut it off. This plot confusion didn't get cleared up for many more years than I'd like to admit. I asked my mom if she remembers taking me to this film. All she recalls is something loud and scary happening. I was much too young to have seen Star Wars (1977) in the theater but my parents got me The Story of Star Wars record which I listened to constantly.

Now I can't confirm the following but I believe that my family enjoyed cable television while I was little lad in Montana. The first movies I remember watching were Popeye (1980) and Clash of the Titans (1981). I don't know if HBO (or whatever channel or channels we had) still does this but when they had a new movie, they would play it all day long. So if memory serves (unlikely), I watched Popeye and Clash of the Titans over and over again all weekend long. I also remember that they played Hardware Wars (1978) and I laughed my head off at it after my dad explained to me why it was funny.

In the vein of things cinematically tragic, I was utterly freaked out by another short film called Recorded Live (1975) which is about film reels that come to life and devour a guy. This poor bastard shows up to a movie or TV studio looking for a job and dies horribly. This could be a metaphor for my social life and how it has been utterly decimated by my love of movies. Or it's about how I feel about showing up for work.

Robert Altman's Popeye is just grotesque and weird. I tried to sit through it once many years later but I was struck by how wrongheaded it seems to be. Maybe it captures the spirit of the original cartoon too well. What is the spirit of the old cartoon, you ask? Imagine if you cut open the rotting carcass of a bull, climbed inside, and did push-ups on your knuckles while listening to the 1812 Overture on 78rpm. That's how I feel about it. So anyway, I have a feeling that if I put the 1980 film on right now, I might actually enjoy it just because it's so goddamned weird. Chances of me actually doing that are around 12%.

Leave it to something as silly as Clash of the Titans to introduce me to the magic of Ray Harryhausen. Later, I'd have my mind blown by his work on the Sinbad movies but this epic 1981 um... epic was just what the doctor (I assume a pediatrician) ordered. My fondest memory of this film is the nighttime scene where Calibos sneaks into Perseus and his crew's camp in order to kill them. This sequence haunted me in the best way and is the closest thing to that European horror vibe that I love coming from a fantasy movie. I recently bought Clash on Blu-ray and haven't revisited it as of yet. However, I have been listening to Laurence Rosenthal's score while writing this. I've seen the 2010 remake but all I remember is that it wasn't terrible. Oh and Medusa was truly lame.

Films I Watched: June 2016

* means first time viewing

Bend It Like Beckham
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave
The Red Queen Kills 7 Times
Pan (2015)*
Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer
Iron Man
Iron Man 2
Iron Man 3
Tokyo Mighty Guy*
Danger Pays*
Murder Unincorporated*
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension*
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies*
Sense and Sensibility
The Perfume of the Lady in Black
Bloody Pit of Horror*
The Cannibal Man*
Tombs of the Blind Dead
The Phantom*
Deadpool
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Spirited Away
Paprika
10 Cloverfield Lane*
Aenigma
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
The Dark Knight Rises
Robocop
There's No Business Like Show Business*
A Better Tomorrow
A Better Tomorrow II*

Overlords of the U.F.O. (1976)

W. Gordon Allen, the writer, producer, and host of this documentary, takes himself and the material presented here VERY SERIOUSLY. This is the film that dares to ask the burning question, “Who are the overlords of the UFO?” Why is it worded that way? I don’t know. While this is a rather dry presentation and gets a little dull at times, Overlords of the U.F.O. is pretty intriguing. The best moments are the artistic recreations of various incidents of sightings and abductions. However, my favorite bit is the information provided by communications from aliens of the planet Ummo. This stuff is just so wild and so much damn fun. Your enjoyment of this documentary will depend entirely on your interest in UFOs and the US government’s attempts to cover up these incidents.

You're Never Nothing (Coming Soonish)

Hey there! As far as busyness goes, I'm pretty businesslike. My band GYROJETS has been recording our first full length album and let me tells ya, it's a lot of work. We're doing everything ourselves to push my recording equipment to the breaking point and just to say hey look we didn't pay anyone to record this! As sort of a progress report and a way to get everybody hyped, we put out a little sampler (link below) of all 11 songs that are on the album as well as an improvised jam we did just a couple of weeks ago. So what's left to do? Ohhhh almost everything. The guitar and drums are about 90% done or more (I hope) and so that leaves bass, keyboards, synthesizer, broken dream-catchers, and vocals. See? Not that much!

Sam and I formed GYROJETS three years ago and we've played some shows. I think we have a pretty rad band. We didn't know what genre we were exactly so we made up our own. It's called Realistic Music. So anyway, I have been recording our demos since day one with varying degrees of success. Due to my stubbornness and addiction to instant gratification, those recordings are a little not so hot. So I'm trying something new and really taking my time as well as inviting my bandmate to be much more involved in the mixing process. I want us to the do the best album we can with the tools that we have. Next time, I'm totally fucking paying someone else to do this crap. I'm tired! So anyway, wish us luck!

Check it out right here and hear and hear.

And here's some recent-ish live footage. This was when we premiered our now famous jumpsuits.

Films I Watched: May 2016

* means first time viewing.

El Muerto AKA The Dead One*
Mortuary*
Captain America
Avengers
Thor
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Two Evil Eyes
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Lord of Illusions*
Ant-Man
Eye in the Labyrinth
Spectre*
Eye of the Cat*
Victor Frankenstein*
Nightmare Weekend*
Captain America: Civil War*
Friday the 13th
Edge of Tomorrow*
La Strada*
St. Trinian's
Night Screams*
Mountaintop Motel Massacre*
Blood Tracks*
The Mutilator*
Evil Laugh*
Graduation Day
Girls School Screamers
To All a Goodnight*
Slumber Party Massacre III*
The Boogey Man
Satan's Blade*
Terror at Tenkiller*
The Last Slumber Party*
Interstellar*
Drive Me Crazy
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials*
Goodnight Mommy*
Easy A
Naussica: Valley of the Wind
Contamination .7*
The Music Man
Grease

Cinema Somnambulist The Book Coming Very Soon

I've got my proof copy, y'all! Fixing egregious errors right now. It's gonna be rad.

You're holding this blog in your hands. One day, you'll hold the book of this blog in your hands!

Maybe I don't know how blogs work.

Giallo Meltdown Is A Year Old

Hey, Giallo Meltdown fans! Do you have Giallo Meltdown? If so, THANK YOU! Do you like it? Do you hate it? REVIEW IT! If you have a blog, I'd love to read what you have to say about it!. If you have a podcast, I'd love to hear what you have to say about it! If you have a vlog, I'd love to see what you have to say about it! So yeah, if you have the book and haven't posted a review of it on Amazon, please do. Good or bad, all reviews help me out immensely.

But the main point of my bloggin' this blog post right now is that I want to say how much fun I've had since putting the book out. I've been able to appear on some cool podcasts and some really nice people have reached out to me to say that they liked Giallo Meltdown. I've also had some really stellar reviews from some very nice folks! These kinds of things mean the world to me.

As for negative criticism, there's been only three things so far. The first one that really embarrassed me was the first bunch of copies went out with a ton of typos. I stupidly got too excited and released the book within days of getting my proof copy. Wow, yeah. Huge mistake. I revised the book and quietly re-released it. Now the only version available out there is in 120% better shape. What can I say? Rookie mistake!

The second thing that happened is that one reviewer took me to task for spoiling the films. I never reveal the killer or the ending of the movie in the book but someone still got mad because I revealed too much about the plot of The Crimes of the Black Cat. All I can say is "Sorry, man." It never occurred to me that revealing the killer's modus operandi would be a huge spoiler. I guess I'll have a disclaimer at the beginning of part 2 to watch the movies before you read about them in the book!

Lastly, two people had a problem with the cover. They both said I should have used a more familiar giallo movie poster so that the book would sell better. To that I say, "No shit, Sherlock." I like giallo posters and all but I wanted something on the cover that reflected the personality of the book. My wife LeEtta, who drew the fabulous art for Giallo Meltdown (and tons of other stuff for me over the years), was there for all these moviethons and she knows what I like. Plus, she's amazing. Why would I want a poster of Bird with the Crystal Plumage or Torso or frickin' Who Saw Her Die? on the cover? I prefer originality.

And you know what? There are a couple of references to gialli in that book cover! I sent her some reference material and asked for a very specific look to the straight razor on the cover. Does it look familiar to you, giallo fans? It should! So to the haters, don't worry, I will continue using LeEtta's awesome art for all of my projects. Deal with it.

So anyway, the planning of the next volume of the book has almost reached its end. Let me tell you a little more about it. As you may or may not know about me, I'm very liberal with what is and isn't a giallo. What I want to explore in the second volume are threefold: key giallo titles that I missed in the first book (New York Ripper, The Stendhal Syndrome, etc.), films that inspired the giallo (Psycho, Blow Up, etc.), and films that were clearly inspired by the giallo (Friday the 13th, Berberian Sound Studio, The Editor, etc.).

Though I tried to make it clear with the first Giallo Meltdown, this is a book from a fan and not a scholar. I want to talk about this up front so people don't pick up my book thinking that I'm the guy whose gonna say in black and white, "this film is a giallo" and "this is NOT a giallo at all" with some authoritative posturing. I definitely want to have fun which has been my intention from the get-go. I want people to come with me on this journey no matter what ridiculous things get along along the way.

So let me just beat this to death right here. If you bought my book, thank you one million times over. If you're a Kindle subscriber and you got it for free, thank you too! If you killed a dude to steal his copy, why'd you do that? That's messed up, bro. But thank you! I've got some fun projects in the works (like the coming VERY soon Cinema Somnambulist book and another issue of Fang of Joy).

Films I Watched: April 2016

* indicated first viewing

April Fool's Day
Bubba Ho-Tep
The Beyond
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Dr. Phibes Rises Again
Naked You Die
Persuasion (1995)
Murder Obsession
10 to Midnight
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Out of the Dark (1995)
The Case of the Bloody Iris
God of Cookery
Gangster VIP*
Gangster VIP 2*
Heartless*
Goro the Assassin*
Black Dagger*
Kill!*
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Grease
Matango
Bride of Re-Animator
Pillow Talk
Love Come Back
Up in Arms
Secret of the Kells*
Phantom of the Ritz*
No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers*
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Hausu
Wake Up and Kill*

Franco Friday #61 - El siniestro doctor Orloff (1984)

I keep thinking that the Franco Friday series is over. I know that I’ve only seen one quarter of Jess Franco’s films and there’s still greatness to be found if I keep scavenging. But honestly, I’m still fried from the last time I jumped in. And as usual, I have so many other fun things going on that this project seems like it might be officially dead. Then, out of the blue, I find ANOTHER Dr. Orloff film! Wait what? How did that happen? Well, gang, here I go again. Let’s see what old Orloff was up to in 1984.

El siniestro doctor Orloff
Directed by Jess Franco
1984
Howard Vernon, Antonio Mayans, Rocío Freixas, Antonio Rebollo, Rafael Cayetano
77 minutes

Dr. Orloff’s son Alfred (Antonio Mayans) is pining over his lost love who also happens to be his dead mother Melissa. He keeps her body preserved so that he can revive her someday. Alfred needs the bodies of young and sexy women to make this terrible dream come to life so he sends his blind assistant Andros out to kidnap him some raw materials. Meanwhile, Inspector Tanner (Antonio Rebollo) is feeling the pressure as he hasn’t been able to crack the case yet. His lovely wife Muriel (Rocío Freixas) wants to help so she gets mixed up in all this craziness too. This should turn out great for all parties involved.

As I was watching The Sinister Dr. Orloff (not to be confused with one of my favorites, The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff), I thought to myself, "Could this be a nice throwback to his early 70s goodness?" The answer is yes. This kind of meandering pervy crap is exactly what I was hoping it would be. Not only are characters recycled from this storyline that Franco remade over and over again, the plot as well will be very familiar to fans of this disjointed series.

Antonio Mayans fans, rejoice! He is pretty frickin' great in this film. Alfred is a really, really pathetic male chauvinist psycho dickhead and his narration while he’s cruising the streets with his robotic manservant is as lame as it is hilarious. Howard Vernon is back as the original Dr. Orloff and he looks truly insane in this. His hair was styled during a nuclear bomb test and his character spends the movie in a wheelchair trying to talk Alfred out of his insane plans. Jess Franco himself plays a ridiculous gay stereotype who witnesses one of the abductions. Lina Romay does some voice work but unfortunately doesn’t play a character onscreen in this one. Rocío Freixas is very cute and all but she's clearly standing in for Romay. She even looks like she's borrowing Lina's blonde wig!

The Spanish seaside locale is beyond beautiful and there’s some very familiar looking architecture on display (see Countess Perverse). This gets predictably trashy as there’s plenty of utterly gorgeous female flesh on display but it only goes for extended onscreen sex once. Color me relieved. The real sleaziness happens when Alfred strangles one of his victims -who is EXTREMELY nude- to death and he seems to be really, really enjoying it.

The Sinister Dr. Orloff is a wonderful overdose of mad science, off kilter dialog, and jiggling boobies (and other body parts). It’s good but definitely not essential for Franco fans but there’s a whipping scene if you’re into that kind of thing. There's also endless shots of Andros carrying naked women over his shoulder which I think is a fetish as well. The synthesizer music at the beginning is very subtle like a supernova smoking crack. Come to think of it, all of the music in this film is pretty deranged; and surprise (not really), it’s all done by Franco under a pseudonym! My only major complaint about this one is that I really wish it was dubbed into English but I highly doubt this film got very much distribution beyond Spain.

“You can’t atomize the soul of a human being.”

GIALLO MELTDOWN CONTEST

Episode 100?

Wait what? How did this happen? Somehow we made it all this way and it is kinda blowing my mind. Have a listen!

Podomatic link

The Vibe Episode Revisted

While trying to avoid using up our bandwidth at the Podomatic page as well as create new-old content, I put The Vibe episode on YouTube. Fans of Hello! This is the Doomed Show often cite episode 3 as one of their favorites and that really blows me away. I often neglect the old episodes just because Brad and I were so new to podcasting and we tended to record VERY LONG and the audio quality was pretty lousy. Not to mention we were still nervous as fudge. However, the passion behind this nearly 3 hour ep is impossible to deny and man oh man, we made some epic lists here. So check it out if you haven't before. Also, I typed up everything we talked about in case you don't want to listen! Bam. That's amazing. Thanks to me.

Stuff we talked about in Episode 3:

The Perfume of the Lady in Black
Torso
Lady Frankenstein
Amuck!
The House by the Cemetery
The Creeping Flesh
The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism
The Ghost
Murder Obsession
Phenomena
Shock
Lisa and the Devil
The Hanging Woman
The Devil's Wedding Night
Anthropophagus
Death Smiles at Murder
Zeder
Tragic Ceremony
A Whisper in the Dark
Night of the Devils
Werewolf Woman
The Sect
Terror Creatures from the Grave
Eye in the Labyrinth
Liz & Helen
Spasmo
Crimes of the Black Cat
Death Carries a Cane
The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire
The Blood Stained Shadow
So Sweet, So Dead
Amuck!
The Dead are Alive
A Smile Before Death
So Sweet, So Perverse
Death Steps in the Dark
The Sweet Body of Deborah
Death Haunts Monica
Spirits of Death
Eyeball
Vampires' Night Orgy
Horror Express
A Candle for the Devil
The Abandoned
La Residencia AKA The House that Screamed
Who Can Kill a Child?
A Bell from Hell
Tombs of the Blind Dead
The Blood Spattered Bride
Symptoms
The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue
Vampyros Lesbos
Rites of Frankenstein
Night of the Skull
A Virgin Among the Living Dead
Eugenie de Sade
Bloody Moon
Kiss Me, Monster
Hunchback of the Morgue
Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll
Werewolf Shadow
Horror Rises from the Tomb
Exorcism
Night of the Werewolf
Human Beasts
Vengeance of the Mummy
Vengeance of the Zombies
Panic Beats
Dr. Jekyll vs. the Wolfman
The Swamp of the Ravens
Hammer horror movies:

Brides of Dracula
Blood from the Mummy's Tomb
Nightmare
Dracula has Risen from the Grave
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter
Countess Dracula
Vampire Circus
Taste the Blood of Dracula
Paranoiac

Films I Watched - March 2016

* = first time viewing

Rawhead Rex*
King of Thorn*
The Singing Detective
Dracula 2000
Cemetery Man
Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory
Hellboy
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Alone in the Dark*
Sleeping Beauty
The Face with Two Left Feet*
Jennifer's Body
We're Still Here*
Streets of Fire
Violent Rome
Voices (1973)*
The Ninth Configuration*
Mother's Day (2010)*
The Dark Side of Midnight*
The Legend of Boggy Creek
The Evictors*
Hackers
Drop Dead Gorgeous
She's All That
Drive Me Crazy
Get Over It
Jawbreaker
Josie and the Pussycats
Center Stage
10 Things I Hate About You
Cruel Intentions
Clueless
Empire Records
Patema Inverted*
The Decoy Bride*
Kung Fu Trailers of Fury*
Cherry Falls
Disturbing Behavior
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan