Bear

October 10th: The Canal - Great psychological horror from 2014 with some breathtaking performances by Rupert Evans and child actor Calum Heath, as well as some very impressive performances by Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Kelly Byrne. It starts off as a straight-forward film in the vein of Sinister and the Babadook, but as it goes on I felt it went a bit more in its own direction and found something of its own. It's pretty slow, but it's atmospheric as fuck and totally worth it. The climax is superb as well. Also, cool that we just talked about Ringu here because there is one scene that for sure is a huge homage to one particular scene in Ringu. Must be a sign from down below! 8/10

I'm very surprised to see my man Jigsaw prefer the remake to the original. And I just love the grainy, gritty picture of the film. The technical aspect of the film is actually quite unimpressive, but it totally adds to the atmosphere of the film and just so happens to be the best part of the film. I think Ringu is a million times better, and a perfect examle of less is more, as opposite of the remake which uses cheap, simple scares, lots of quick cuts and fast zooms, CGI, sudden use of weird noises to freak you out and all those elements. But the simplicity and lack of technical brilliance of the original just rules. Now, let's all listen to Mortification's "God Rulz" and just change the lyrics to "Ringu Rulz" Ringu Rulz Ringu Rulz Ringu Rulz Ringu Rulz Ringu Rulz Ringu Rulz Ringu Rulz Ringu Rulz Ringu Rulz

October 9th: Mutant Girls Squad - Gonzo gore galore! Do I need to say more? Probably not, but I'll say a few words anyway. Dumb, ove the top and totally ridiculous splatter by Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura and Tak Sakaguchi. Like a lot of the other films in the "new wave of Japanese splatter" genres it's a film that is synonymous with madness. It's also one of those films where I can tolerate awful CGI, even though I would've prefered if there was more pratical special effects, especially considering Yoshihiro Nishimura is a special effects god. But as I said, in these type of cheesy films I can actually lean back and enjoy the awful CGI. Silly from A to Z, but if you love childish Japanese absurdity there's no reason why you shouldn't check out this film. 7/10

I agree, but I guess Japanese just think these ghosts are the scariest. They've been very popular in Japanese films since the 60's at least. But you could try some of the older films with these types of ghosts though as they were used a bit different back then. The Ghost of Yotsuya, Illusion of Blood, Kwaidan, Crest of Betrayal, Kuroneko, Jigoku and more. While the ghosts are rathr traditional and look similar to what you're used to, they're just used in a whole different way than in the more modern films with 'em.

Ringu is nothing short of breathtaking and phenomenal. Brilliant film! The remake is actually good (6/10), and easily among the best american remakes of asian horror films. But it's not a must-see or anything. And the "stringy black-haired ghost girl" aka Yurei is simply traditional Japanese ghosts, and beneath yurei you have different ghosts such as onryo (vengeful ghost?), ubume (mother dying giving birth or something), funayurei (ghosts of people who died at sea, but these are often a bit different than the other yurei's, looking more like monsters and such), samurai ghosts and more. As far as their looks goes, that was something they came up with in the 17th century to distinguish them from humans in plays. Simple as that. I love the look and prefer it to regular western ghosts. Many people don't know this and often wonder what the hell the cover for Sigh's Hail Horror Hail is supossed to be, and it's actually a classic painting of a Yurei by 18th century artist Tsukioka Yoshitoshi:

October the 8th: Human Lanterns - Martial arts-horror with the likes of Lieh Lo, Tony Liu and Chen Kuan-tai in the leads. The best way to describe this is Hammer Horror meets traditional Shaw Brothers wuxia. The story is standard, but very cool and engaging to me, it's well-acted and choreographed, and it's atmospheric as fuck. It's very dream-like, stylish and lit in a way that'll make fans of Suspiria cum their panties full 7 days a week, and the atmosphere is pretty morbid at times. I think ghastly would be a fitting word. Butit is the cinematography and set-pieces that truly makes this film what it is. It looks so damn beautiful haunting and ghastly. The film is directed by Chung Sun, and while he's not one of Shaw Brothers most known directors, he's often said to be among the most talented among them. And when watching a film like this, or the masterpiece that is The Devil's Mirror, it's easily to see why people think so. And the way he's turned Yojimbo (because let's be honest, plot-wise this is pretty close to Yojimbo) into a dark, ghastly wuxia-horror that comes off as both original and uniue, despite not being either, just sums up why he's got the status that he's got in the underground. At the end of the day I would highly recommend this ghoulish martial arts-extravaganza to both fans of martial arts and horror films. Stunning film! 10/10

October the 6th: Hotel Transylvania - Fun, charming children's horror film with a bunch of cool, likeable characters and a fun plot, even though it is very predictable. But you just can't help but go "aaaaaawwwwwwwww" at the characters and everything that happens. And don't forget all the homages/tributes to older horror films such as the face-shaped cave that just screams The Phantom of the Opera. Yeah, I thought this film was excellent. I am really looking forward to the sequel. 8/10 October the 7th: All Cheerleaders Die - 12-13 years after Chris Sivertson and Lucky McKee releaed All Cheerleaders Die they released their very own remake of the same film, and while I have not seen the original, I am quite interested after having seen this. This isn't exactly genius filmmaking, but I thought it was fun. The start is a bit slow, but after about half an hour it starts getting real fun. Silly, sure, but fun nonetheless. The special effects though...jesus, at times theywere provokingly bad. Totally out of place to be honest. But other than that it was fun actually. 6/10

So I just heard two songs off the new album, and what the fuck happened? They finally sound like a melodic death metal band again. Slightly more progressive than their first two album, but this actually sounds good. I hope this mean they finally left the alternative/groove metal shit that they've been doing every since Natural Born Chaos behind and focus on the melodic death metal again. Will check out this new album for sure. And based on these two songs alone this is easily their best album since A Predator's Portrait. That's exciting! Hope the rest of the tracks is as good.

They pulled the plug on Jim Sadist the other day. Read some stories that Jim Sadist, on the days they were having their gigs in norway, was standing outside the place and greeting everyone who showed up for their gig one time, and the next he was giving away Darkthrone patches to everyone who showed up. Which was not unusual for him, as he after gigs used to walk around the crowd and personally thank everyone in the crowd for showing up, often giving away stuff like patches or posters to everyone. Seemed like a real character. Will play through a couple of Nunslaughter albums today. Whata band, man! Everyone into Possessed, Sarcofago, Repusion, Hellhammer, Necrophagia and the liked should own at least a couple of Nunslaughter releases.

Haha! That is very understandable. October the 5th: Proxy - Weird horror/thriller/drama which often feels like a Hitchcockian Martyrs or something along those lines. One thing that I do know though is that it sure wasn't what I expected at all. It's slow, it's stylish and it's weird, and it won't satisfy most people. But it tells a tale of different people and their need for attention and more. Yeah, I don't know. It's dark and twisted. I liked it. That one scene was majestic, though. Not very realistic or aything, but it looks so cool. Very artistic choice of blood. Loved that scene! 6/10

I went to see The Prodigy the other day and it was amazing. The sound was good, the entire band on fire and everything just clicked this evening. I thought it was a bit short when they ended it, but after checking their setlist yesterday I realised they had actually played 16 songs which is fairly decent. Superb gig! I wish there was a few more older songs though, but the new, more punky songs off The Day is my Enemy worked really well live. They felt harder, yet more danceable live than on album. Nah, great gig! Happy to finally have seen the band live as well.

I was a bit busy at the start of the month so I have some catching up to do, but I've seen a few films this month: October the 1st: The House at the End of Time - While not really original or anything, this haunted house film does its job very well. The story is good, the acting is great and the overall atmosphere and suspense is good, but my main problem is actually the cinematography which is a bit changing. At times it feels like they've had several cinematographers, but I'd recommend this film. 7/10 But to my disappointment this is not really a horror film, though. It's more a sci-fi-mystery-thriller October the 2nd: Satan's Little Helper - Pretty poor and goofy horror-comedy that is neither funny nor scary or atmospheric in any way. It's just ridiculous. I fucking hated the mom and the relationship between the her and her teenage daughter. They came off more two bi-curious roomates that just wants to fuck eachother. It was so odd. Nah, didn't do it for me. At least not this time around. 4/10 I can see this becoming a cult film with time, though. October the 3rd: Friday the 13th (2009) - A remake that is awful in every way possible, and that seems to have misunderstood what Friday the 13th is all about. Awful jokes, annoying-as-fuck characters, poor camera work and cinematography and weak acting sums this film up fine. And while the original isn't exactly anything Oscar-worthy, this is just dumbed down so much it's sad. What a disaster of an film. 2/10 October the 4th: The Relic - A very cool and suspensful horror film from the late 90's. The monster looks cool, the atmosphere is great and it's an overall enjoyable film. For the majority of the film the special effects are a blend of nice, practical ones and decent CGI, but the big disappointment comes towards the end when they go full retard with the CGI. That's what almost breaks the film for me, sadly. But overall I thought it was a very enjoyable film! 7/10

So, a small live update from Trondheim Metal Fest: Thursday: Troldskugge kicked off the evening, but aside from their make up and shit, it was embarrasing. It was a poor joke. 2/10 From the Vastland from Iran was the band I came to see, but I was really disappointed. Sina did a fairly good job and stuff, but the sound was poor. Too loud and too sharp. An the drums played by either Vyl of Keep of Kalessin or Kevin Kvåle of Horizon Ablaze was so shitty. The sound was awful. No dynamic in his bass drums whatsoever, and they just took way too much space in the sound. Ew. 4/10 The Immortal inspired Iskald ended the evening with their melodic black/thrash metal and it worked fine, but again the loud was too sharp and loud. But it was OK, but I left 3 songs before they were finished due to the loudness though. 6/10 Friday: First band we went down to see was Circus Maximus and it was boring as fuck. Saw two songs and left. Lacked balls and attitude. 3/10 Then we tried Triosphere which again was boring as fuck. Lacked balls and attitude. 3/10 Then Sabaton went on and I actually had some expectations to this band despite not being a fan, but what a poor gig. I think me and my brother left 5-6 songs out in their set. It was just godawful and every single word they said to the audience was so obviously staged. Nah, embarrassing! 2/10 Catched the two last songs of black metallers Khold and it kicked ass. Shame we missed the rest, because it was really cool! Been some years since I saw them last, so I wish I'd seen their entire set. Cool as fuck! 7/10 Rotting Christ ended the evening for us, and I entered the concert a sceptic as I saw the band earlier this year and thought it sucked. But what a gig! Smaller scene and a dirtier sound fitted them really well. Excellent gig! 8/10 Saturday: Tried Susperia as both me and my brother used to be big fans, and neither had seen the band in ages, but it was poor. The sound sucked and the band looked uninspired. 4/10 Then came Aura Noir and as usual they delievered a great gig. Lots of dirty attitude, great songs and a superb front man. Awesome! 8/10 Korpiklaani was next and who'd have thought they were a fantastic live band? I was mighty impressed. It's silly, stupid and over the top, but it totally worked! 8/10 Primordial was next and what a gig. This is how you play live! A.A. Nemtheanga puts us in the mood after a lovely, celtic intro by screaming something like "We are Primordial from the Republic of Irland. Are you with us? Then raise your fist!". Best opening to a concert ever, and this is easily among the best concerts I've seen. A.A. Nemtheanga is from another world, and not only does he sing well, it's just well-above every other frontman in the world. The concert was short as they usually are on festivals, but it was good and well-worth the 10 year wait I've had to see these guys live. Perfection! 10/10 Tried to watch Stratovarious too, but it didn't work for me. Left up to watch some karaoke instead, a place where I sang True Survivor louder than the man on stage. Two thumbs up for myself! Great weekend, and if there's someone like Primordial I will sure be there next year as well.

I am soon leaving my house headed for Dødens Dal and The Prodigy. Oh yeah, this is gonna be good. Shame I have to work tomorrow, but it'll be worth it for sure.

Considering the amount of metal fans on this board I am quite surprised not to see bands like Sabbat, Abigail, S.O.B., Unholy Grave, Gnome, Transgressor and Corrupted mentioned. Does that mean that the majority of metal fans on the board have heard them, or does it mean that they haven't even heard of them? Absolute legends and cult as far as Japanese metal goes.

Oh shit, so ex-Goatlord guitarist Joe Frankulin recentlygunned down his neighbor, abducted and killed her 8 year old son before he killed himself. Jesus, shocking. http://m.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/shooters-neighbors-knew-he-was-planning-something Goatlord was a great band by the way. Supreme black/death/doom metal band. Should be interesting for fans of Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Doom Snake Cult and Dream Death

New Abbath track: That sounds way better than the last. Music-wise it sounds more like Sons of Northern Darkness, but vocal-wise it sounds more like I. Anyway, I liked this song quite a bit. https://soundcloud.com/furze-29250360/goat-cyclus New Furze, and the new song sounds superb. Never expected the band to go in this direction, but I love it! And Jim Sadist of Nunslaughter suffered a stoke in september, and his dad informed yesterday that he had no chance of recovery. Sad. Such a cool drummer, and from what I've read, a cool guy as well. And Satyr og Satyricon was diagnosedwith a brain tumor. It's of the "good" kind, but if it continues to grow he'll need a complecated surgery.

Foe Hammer is a damn fine EP. The drums sounds a bit off most of the time, but the rest is very good. The entire EP can be heard here for those interested in some nice, atmospheric black metal: http://sumeragi.bandcamp.com/album/foe-hammer-ep

I couldn't afford it with everything I'm going to in October and November. Sadly. Covert art from the upcoming Abbath 7" Count the Dead: Remove the two clows in the background and shoot it from a slightly different angle and that could so easily have been a cool picture, but like that it's fucking awful.

The Bare-Footed Kid - Superb Johnnie To remake of the classic Chang Cheh flick Disciples of Shaolin. Is it as good as Disciples of Shaolin? No, not quite, but it's still a martial arts masterpiece. Among the cast is Aaron Kwok, one of my personal favourites Ti Lung and Maggie Cheung, all fantastic actors of course, as well as other solid actors. The fights are well-choreographed and more often than not they're brilliant, but that's not all it's got: it's got a good plot and story. Superb film, but if I had to choose I'd choose the original which I consider the better film. But both are worth watching!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 - Let me just start of with the title: OK, the titles don't mean shit to me, but couldn't they've found something a bit different? Cloudier with a Chance of More Meatballs or something like that? Nah, fuck that. Anyway, I quite liked the first film despite its overly polished computer animation. It had the story, the characters, the innovation and originality that you rarely find in animated film of this size nowadays. It was fresh, hilarious and cool. The sequel? Well, my first thought was that there wasn't any need to do a sequel. The first one didn't really ask for it, other than the popularity of it. It's an unnecessary sequel. Is it good though? Yeah, I think so. Not quite as innovative, original and fresh as the first, but it's good. It's exciting, and it's got a great villain who is surprisingly evil, willing to kill people and everything. And it's lovely that it continues just seond after the first film ended. That was a nice change. It's a fun film. Really loved all those Jurassic Park refrences adn well as the puns and wordplays. Yeah, I liked the film. Clash of the Titans - No, I have not seen the shit remake from 2010. I've rewatched the original Clash of the Titans, and I enjoyed it just as much now as I did 5-7 years ago. I won't say much about this, but it's a Ray Harryhausen film, and that alone makes it a must for anybody into film. He didn't direct it, didn't act in it, didn't lend his voice to any of the characters, he produced the film, and more importantly, did the special effects, and like in all the films he features, he's the star of the film. Beautifully animated creatures that'll give you the most massive boner you've had in years. He is among the biggest name in the world of films to me, and Clash of the Titans is an excellent example to find out why I think so. Is it as good as Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad or The Beast from 20,000? No, it's not even close. It's more on the level of films such as The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, 20 Million Miles to Earth and a few more. Which means while it's not perfect, it's still absolutely brilliant and a must-see in my eyes. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Ray Harryhausen could do no wrong. He did no wrong. The plot and screenplay could be poor and the acting even worse, the budget low and the director bad, but at the end of the day Ray Harryhausen would do hat only he could do and save the film with his immense talents. What a man!

Yeah, you check it out boy. I reckon you'll like it quite a lot too. I am also really looking forward to Goodnight Mommy, it looks neat. Even my girlfriend totally looks forward to the film. Killer Crocodile - Cheesy Italian low-budget animal horror from the late 80's. It's so-bad-it's-good-cheese. The plot sucks, the acting sucks and the characters suck, but it's still fun. The crocodile looks cool, but it doesn't look real at all and it changes size quite often, and there's plenty of blood and shit to make this an enjoyable film. This is shit, but it's fun shit and works perfectly together with a few cold beers, and possibly a few friends as well. The film is scored by none other than Riz Ortolani, and the score is great. Easily the best part of the film.

Blastfighter - Cult action film by Lamberto Bava, son of genius filmmaker Mario Bava. This film was originally written as a remake of Mad Max, but after a quick rewrite it turned out as a trashy, exploitation-esque version of Rambo: First Blood and Deliverance, rather than anything Mad Max-esque. It's not great filmmaking at al, but it's an utter cool, badass and highly entertaining action film with some superb action. Michael Sopkiw is superb as our main man, and he pulls off his mustache in a great way. Looks sexy as fuck! Also, the score is superb. Just listen to this track, guys: Oh fuck, that's the kind of shit that gives you a boner that lasts for weeks. Beautiful! Special ID - A standard, run-of-the-mill Donnie Yen flik that is nothing out of the ordinary, but Donnie Yen is given the freedom to do what he does best, which is why the film is so entertaining. It's pretty campy at times, much due to the dialogue and soundtrack, but it offers more than enough thrills to keep you interested for 100 minutes, and the action is great. It's more often than not shot from a certain distance that lets you see what the fighters are actually doing, and while the fights are cut to make them look more awesome than what they are, it's not cut to death in any way. The cinematography is great too, especially the outdoors nightscene in the rain. A real pleasure to the eye. Donnie Yen is amazing as always. Fucking love this guy so much. Time Lapse - Superb sci-fi-thriller with a small-budget and really cool plot. It's an exciting film that kept me on the edge of the chair for the majority of its runtime. The pacing is perfect, and while a couple of the characters are easy to hate in a way, they're just as easy to like. An intense and very entertaining film.

Dir en grey, easily. Not a single bad album/EP released during that time. The band released their best album and songs as DIR ER GREY, but one of the albums among the worst ever, one is just übershit and one is mediocre. So this was a easy choice for me.

New Hooded Menace track: https://soundcloud.com/relapserecords/02-elysium-of-dripping-death Sounds great.