Bear

Castle of Owls - When I say this film is directed by Eiichi Kudo, you should know that this is a high quality film. If you're not familiar with Eiichi Kudo, then shame on you. Eiichi Kudo is probably best known for for his masterpieces 13 Assassins (the original which Takashi Miike remade some years ago), The Great Killing and Eleven Samurai. Castle of Owls might as wellbe the finest ninja film I have ever seen, one of the best jidaigeki-films I've ever seen, and probably the best I've seen by Eiichi Kudo till now. The story is simple, yet brilliant, the actors are top notch, it's beyond visually stunning (the colours in the film look fantastic!!!), the fights and ninjaism is magnificent and it's just extremely well-made, as expected from someone like Eiichi Kudo. It is a real shame that the remake is perhaps better known than this. Much more known I think. I've not seen the remake, but I am interested in seeing it, but I doubt it can match this film. That is hands down one of the best shots I've ever seen on film.

This hasn't got anything to do with horror films, but this stuff is recommended to people who can't get enough of 70's and 80's synth-heavy horror soundtracks ala Carpenter, Frizzi and so on. Slasher Dave. Slasher Dave is 1/3 of the horror-inspired death/doom outfit Acid Witch, which is fantastic by the way, and Slasher Dave is his solo project. Released two albums so far, first which I'd say has more in common with John Capenter and the second with Fabio Frizzi, even though you can hear both of those, as well as others, being present in both albums. I think both albums are fantastic. Tomb of Horror are among my favourite albums in 2014. Listen to both albums here: Spookhouse Tomb of Horror

Well, it's a torture porn with the most important ingredients, but it's a lot different from Saw, Hostel, A Serbian Film and so on. It's frustratingly dark and bleak, and desite all its violence it is not the violence itself that makes it a disturbing film. Unlike Saw, which is fun with all of its creative kills and blood, this isn't fun in that way. It's not silly in the same way as most other tortue porns. It's just deeply disturbing in a great way. i was let down by The Collector. Not bad, just not very good either. Gave it a 5/10 and never bothered with The Collection.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is seriously good, and seriously underrated. Shame so many write it off because it's something different than the first, which is really is, but still fantastic.

New Marduk song as well: https://soundcloud.com/centurymedia/marduk-rope-of-regret As for Varathron, I'm a massive fan myself and thought this new one was the best since their 1995 classic Walpurgisnacht. But they've got a long way before they reach the magnificence of His Majesty at the Swamp and Walpurgisnacht which is not only among the best greek black metal albums ever, which in all honestly says hella lot, but two of the best black metal albums EVER. The compilation Genesis of the Unaltered Evil are also worth a purchase. Fantastic comp with demos, and EP and the split with Necromantia. But the whole split is recommended. The Necromantia side is fantastic as well. And I can never talk bout Varathron without mentioning Hail, which sounds like a mix of Varathron's His Majesty at the Swamp and Beherit's Drawing Down the Moon. Such a great album.

What the fuck did I just waste my time on? Also, judging from that clip the drums sounds AWFUL.

Ninja III: The Domination - The third and final films in The Cannon Group's ninja trilogy, and the most ridiculous of the three. I mean, this is so fucking over the top and it won't take you many minutes to find that out. The first ten minutes of the film consists of a ninja assasinating a man and his girl, before an army of cops starts chasing him. The ninja being a ninja he slays a shitload of cops with different weapons before he gets shot... 100 times and continues to fight and do his shit. A beautiful telephone linewoman and aerobics teachers finds this injured man and receive a sword - and so it all begins. That's just during the first ten minutes. This film has ninjas, possessions, exorcisms, floating swords, vengeance from beyond the grave, a beautiful lead and Sho Kosugi. And awesome fights. Do you need to need more? No, you do not. Watch this masterpiece!

Innerspace - This is one of the films everybody loves when seeing it at a young age, and I was obviously one of them. So when rewatching this last night I was very excited to see if it had stood the test of time, or if it was en embarrassing piece of shit in 2014. And not only was I excited to see if this was good in 2014 because I loved it as a young, but also because I've grown on to become a HUGE Joe Dante fan over the years. Piranha , The Howling and Gremlins are three FANTASTIC films, and I adore Small Soldiers as well. One of my all-time favourite directos, despite not having too many movies to his name. And guess what? Innerspace hasn't gone sour one tiny bit. Still absolutely fantastic and I can understand why this won an academy award. Ok, so some of the visuals do look a bit dated, but everything else is fantastic and both Martin Short and Robert Picardo are beyond fantastic in this film. It's not the film that keeps you gigling from A to Å like Dumb & Dumber or anything, but when it provides some laughs you'll have a hard time stop laughing because it's absolutely hilarious. Very good film!

There's nothing wrong with it, but there's a HUGE difference between only being into hip hop/metal/punk/classical music/whatever and only VK as I see and have experienced it: people who listen to VK tends to be into a SHITLOAD of genres (nu metal, metalcore, progressive metal, rock, pop, electronica, goth, punk), so it obviously have nothing to do with being close-minded as far as the music goes, because they're usualy very open-minded and tend to enjoy plenty of genres. So this quite obviously have nothing to do with the music itself, but something else. The image? Or maybe they feel unique listening to VK? I wouldn't know. If they, like the hip hop, classical music or metal fan only are only into one genre it would've been something else, but they're not. They're simply not into just one genre, they're into a scene and enjoy plenty of different genres, unlike the one that exclusively listens to hip hop, which is one genre. As far as image goes, it's quite important to look good/cool/whatever to gain attention to themself and make people check you out, and this goes for all genres. I check out band because of their image, and I check out albums because of their cover art. But I don't judge the music itself because of either things, that's when it gets stupid IMO, when someone "choose" to continue listen to band A because they look better, despite liking the music of band B way better.

It's more a term than an actual genre, but if you talk to someone who's into horror, they'l know what torture porn is and they'll be able to mention a few films within that "genre". And yes, there's people out there who love watching violence, blood and gore, and I am one of them. But I don't like everything just because it's got blood and gore. I really like some of the Saw films, really dislike a few of them. Hate the Hostel films, DESPISE A Serbian Film and so on. But I can mention more sick films I enjoy, than dislike. I'm a sucker for it, both the realistic stuff as well as unrealistic stuff. I love brutally bloody violence, gore and whatnot on the screen, and I love MMA (fighting) and such as well. But when it comes to real life violence (aka violence where there's no doctors to take the call, no ref to tell them what's OK and what's wrong and so on) I'm not a fan at all. Can't stand that. Seeing people fight when going out a saturday night properly disgusts me. But when it comes to film it really can't get gory or bloody enough for me.

Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th - I'm home sick today and my girlfriend went to work, so I finally got enough time to myself to watch this documentary. 400 minutes of everything Friday the 13th, from the first film to the remake, including the TV-series. There's interviews with directors, actors, producers, special effects-guys, componists and some Alice Cooper, as well as deleted scenes, pictures, stories and more. This was one hell of a ride, and don't be scared of the lenght - it doesn't even feel half as long as what it actually is. This documentary is simply essencial for every fan of Friday the 13th out there, be it only the first, a few of them or all. Well, this is a must-see for Friday the 13th fans, and one that general fans of horror should see. Magnificent! 10/10

It's about Japanese bands, but when Poison Idea and Integrity mention you as a huge influence you've done something very right. With that said, I also prefer The Execute to G.I.S.M. Still dig G.I.S.M. though. But I just can't see past G.I.S.M. There's something very special about their music. Another band that deserves a mention is Effigy. Crushing crust/thrash metal in the vein of old Sacrilege and Axegrinder. Despite being active from 1989 to 2007-2008 or something they only released two short EPs, as well as spits with Apärät, Häväistys, Acrostix, Zoe, Disturd, Hellshock and Abigail. They were also included on an Amebix tribute with Acrostix, Raw Gauge, Age, Life and Zoe. One of the very few tribute albums I've found myself listening to over and over again over the years. So they don't have too much material on their hands, but what they have are excellent. Someone should re-release all their stuff on vinyl. Evil Fragments (FULL ALBUM) From Hell/ Grinding Summer Massacre Magnificent band. I even own a zipper hoodie from this band. No idea where I got it from.

Shinobi No Mono 4: Siege - Back on track! The first three films were based on the Shinobi no Mono novels by Tomoyoshi Murayama, and starred Raizo Ichikawa in the role as Goemon Ishikawa. This is the first of the films in the series to be based on original screenplays by Hajime Takaiwa, the same man who was the screenwriter for the three first films. Raizo Ichikawa continues in the lead, but this time as another character called Saizo Kirigakure, who is on the opposite side of his first character Goemon Ishikawa. One of my alltime favourite actors Tomisaburo Wakayama is also present in this film, after being absent in the last film, Shinobi No Mono 3: Resurrection. Both are fantastic, just so that's said. The film starts off as a proper slow burner, and while very good and interesting, it takes some time before it properly starts off. But when it does it's like getting kicked in the stomach. Everything is taken a bit further here and the ninjas are closer to what we think of when hearing the word ninja in 2014 than what the previous 3 films were, and every single time there's some ninja action on screen it looks fantastic. Stunning work. The story is top notch as well as the beautiful cinematogaphy, though a bit too dark in places. All in all a fantastic film and the second best, if not THE best, in the series so far.

Yes, I'd say they were. Not huge like Discharge or Amebix anything, but having a pretty big influence on the underground metal and hardcore scene, especially considering they played a type of metal punk that was way ahead of its time. Poison Idea are one of the bands citing G.I.S.M. as a big influence. Dwid of Integrity and Sean of Rot in Hell also mention G.I.S.M. as a huge inspiration. "We listen to the wisdom of Sakevi Yokoyama and Pentti Linkola, not the fripperies of Belladonna and Mustaine". Heh. But more than being a musical influence, I believe G.I.S.M., along with bands such as Plasmatics, Amebix and Sacrilege, was very important in "uniting" the two communities. Suddenly it was cool to like both metal and punk, and suddenly you had both metalheads and punks going to the same gigs.

1. People have different taste, ad therefore there will always be people complaining about the newest release. This isn't unique for Dir en grey, this happens for every single band out there. 2. People want music they enjoy, and what they enjoy are different from individual to individual. Simple as that. 3. No, people don't just want him to screech and scream on every album. Again, people want something they enjoy. Some people want something hard or brutal, while others want something soft and catchy. Again, this differ from individual to individual. Someone, or most actually, don't care as long as it's good. 4. Why should people give a band respect, if the band doesn't do anything to satisfy them? I can respect Dir en grey for Missa, Gauze, Macabre, Uroboros and most of their other release, but there's no chance in hell I'll respect them for the abominations that is The Marrow of a Bone, Dum Spiro Spero, the awful re-recordings or their live performances. Why not you ask? Because I think they're fucking shit, and there's no way I am gonna pay any respect for what I consider shit. Anyway, everything will always come down to personal taste. I don't give a fuck if the upcoming album is hard, heavy, soft, catchy or whatever as long as it's actually good. And that's what everyone wants; something THEY consider good.

How exactly do you think G.I.S.M. are overrated? They've got the status they've got for three reasons: 1. because of the cool music. 2. because of Sakevi being a crazy motherfucker. 3. because they did something that at the time was incredibly unique, and proved to be a massive insiration for bands to come. I mean, I can fully understand people not enjoying their sloppy-ass metalpunk, but how people can see them as overrated is beyond me to be honest.

Also, Sigh are back in Studio Moopies and are now recording the upcoming album. And for all P lovers: Blood Music will re-release Gallows Gallery in a standard version now. Will be up for pre-sale from next week. The original is a beauty beyond words, so I am looking forward to this. Will grab one meself, two if there's two different colours as I expect it to be. This is what the first press looked like: Was limited to 200 copies, with a black one limited to 100. So 300 in all.

A very old photo with Stevo from Impetigo. It was taken at Stevo's house in around 1990. I was probably 20 or so. We went to the vinyl hunting and I remember getting Mercyful Fate's fist 12"EP just for $4. A very personal fire breathing practice scene. It says 1992. Yasuyuki from Abigail and I were often practicing breathing fire with a cigarette lighter, I mean without a grandiose torch. Thus you can breathe fire almost all of sudden on stage. This one is from 1992, the second gig with this line-up. Pre-Scorn-Defeat day. One of the guys we knew back then was claiming "Playing cover songs is very amateurish. If you want to be a professional musician, you should play your own songs." So we did all-Venom setlist. Mirai and Stevo.

Thank you. That's nice. Saw is horror, aye. But it's a sub-genre called torture porn (so you're quite right), which is horror with lots of focus on explicit violence, torture, mutilation, sadism, nudity and such. A sub-genre of the splatters, I guess you could say. While I like plenty of the American torture porns, I think the french mastered this genre with films such as Martyrs, À l'intérieur, Haute tension, In My Skin, Frontière(s) and more. Unlike most of the American torture porn, these films had a lot going for it underneath the shock. Yes, there's lots of violence and sexual ugliness, but there's so much more to them than just that. But if one doesn't like extreme violence, then these obviously ain't for you. Martyrs are probably the best of the lot along with Saw IMO. But it's quite different. Bleak, dark, disturbing, raw and pitch black horror which just plays with your brain due to its bleak and disturbing content. But with this film, it isn't the violence, torture or sadism that hurts you, it's the pain itself. It's a fantastic film IMO.

Oh fuck, that sounds good. Really good. Speaking about Ghostface Killah, when the fucking fuck will the collab with MF Doom see the light of the day? These bastards ae slow as fuck. Finish it already. Also, this here is amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaCNG8lpZso#t

Revenge of the Ninja - Second part of the Ninja trilogy in whih neither film have anything to do with eachother, other than Sho fucking Kosugi who plays a role in all, though different characters. In this they nail the story, the characters and action. OK, so it's not a proper good film and the story isn't very good or special, but it's an entertaining story that gets things going and it's a fun one. Sho fucking Kosugi is his usual self and he's proper badass like. So fucking brutal. It's more over the top than Enter.., except for the amount of bloody violence. There's a serious lack of blood throughout of the film IMO, and with more blood it'd be even better. But the end makes up for it. Ad the climax is better than in Enter... It's so fucking over the top and ridiculous, in a good way that is. Awesome stuff! Sho Kosugi's two sons plays in the film as well. One plays a huge part actually. Cool as fuck.

Yeah, it was very fun. Was fun 8-10 years ago as well. I think it was right after the release of Chimera. Heh. Cool, that looked good. Shame about Corpsegrinder's invitation to a pit though. Fuck pits, fuck ninja dansing and fuck moshing.

Night of the Living Dead (1990) - My girl wanted to watch this last night, so I played along. Long time since I last saw it anywaw. It's a decent remake and a good film, but it's not close to the original at all. The only thing in this I prefer to the original is the hanging scene, the rest doesn't come close. The original is superior in every way possible. It's a well-made film and all, but it just lacks that feeling of sheer terror and frustration from the original, as well as the claustrophobic feeling from the original. And the actors are mostly so-so.Especially Patricia Tallman is rather annoying here. Good, but not on par with the original. 7/10

Thanks.

Enter the Ninja - While not the first American ninja film ever, this was the one that started the ninja boom of the 80's, just like Halloween did with slashers. The film stars Franco "Django" Nero, Susan George and Sho fucking Kosugi, and the latter is the star here. I mean, fuck! Sho was beyond awesome in the 80's. Not a good actor, but more than enough charisma and badassness to make up for it. Enter the Ninja isn't a good film by any means, but it's got a great cast, lots of cheese and bood, cool ninjas and awesome fights. What more do you reall need? Nothing, I say. Nothing at all!