Bear

But what was it that you did not understand before? I don't get why so many struggle to understand the film. It's a very, very straight forward film afterall and everything is overexplained about a thousand times during the film's playtime.

House - This horror comedy from 1986 has a good, though predictable, story, great special effects,(mostly) awesome monster design, cool acting and all that and is a lot of fun. To keep it short I'll just say that this feels like a 90 minute long episode of Goosebumps for grown ups, the TV-series based on R.L. Stine's childrens horror books of the same name. It just has that feeling to it. I really liked it.

Yesterday I found out my girl works today and won't get home before around 11:30, so I decided I'd buy some fine beer and enjoy three extremely cheesy movies. But the first I saw was so disappointing I said fuck that and watched a longer one instead. Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory - Great tite? Check! Great poster? Check And when I put it on it even had a fine, cheesy theme song which insantly put me in a good mood for this film. The dubbing is pretty bad, in a good way, and the atmosphere are OK at times. But it just doesn't have enough cheese and it is way too long. 50-55 minutes would've done it, but it's 83 minutes long for fucks sake. It just drags and drags and drags. It's a shame, because at 50 minutes this could've been a fantastic film, if cut right. Also, this film could've used some nudity. Something a bit sexy. Scream 4 - I finally got around to watch this and I must admit that I am impressed.It's never scary or creepy, it's predictable as fuck and it's very formulaic and relies heavily on clichés, but I thought this was 110 minutes of dumbed down and fun horror. But despite that, it just manages to pick out what made Sceam so great, and build further on that unlike what Scream 2 and 3 did. Bloody, violent and very well-directed. A huge surprise!

The Minas Morgul tape was broken as it arrived (inside the plastic wrapping, so it was not Nordvis' fault), but I sent a mail to Nordvis and got a fast answer that they'll send me a new one asap. Fantastic customer service like. This type of servie will make sure I'll order from them again and recommend them to others.

Rewatched Snowpiercer with my girl yesterday. Yes, one can tak about plot holes or bad CGI, but this film is awesome. The atmosphere is fantastic, everything that's not CGI looks gorgeous and we get some of the coolest action scenes seen since Oldboy. They're executed with such flair and style it's almost beautiful to watch people get murdered in the film. And the cast is superb as well. Song Kang-ho is a god and that's a fact. Don't need to say more about him than that. Chris Evans shows that he's way more than just a pretty face, Ah-sung Ko and John Hurt is amazing, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner and so on are all very good. But the main reason why I like this so much is the atmosphere and inside-visuals. The wagons looks amazing and they've all got their own identity and character. It's so well done like. Stunning stuff.

The Sword in the Stone - Rewatched this today. Ages since last I saw it, and it's still a fantastic film, and one of the most underrated Disney films ever. The story is great and the characters are great, but the animation god damnit. Few times have the world seen animation as fluid, organic and fantastic as this. It's a pleasure to the eye. Really is.

Yeah, there's a western band as well. I prefer the Japanese one, but I love the British one as well. Their two first albums are both classics, with the first one being my favourite. Fantastic stuff with some of the best lyrics you'll ever read. Martin Walkyier is a genius, something he showcased in both Sabbat and Skyclad. As for Sauron, a few of their songs are based on Tolkien. Witch King and Storm of Ashes. Not sure about the rest. I never checked.

Hellraiser - I I rewatched thiis last night. It's been almost 30 years and it still feels both fresh and original. Fantastic creature design, bloody perfect special effects, monsterous atmosphere, amazing cast and a great story. It's got everything! Fantastic in every possibe way. Ashley Laurence is amazing in the film. Why on earth didn't she get more popular? She's beyond beautiful as well. Shame.

I'm working at a school and today, on "my watch" of course, one of the kids thought it would be wise to pee in a drawer. I don't know this kid too well, though, so I told someone who know him and it got dealt with. I had to look over two rooms where some kida were playing with lego, and as I was about to check on the kids in the small room one of the kids came out and started talking to me: Him: Bear, he just peed in the drawer Me: no, he didn't Him: yes, he did Me: are you sure? Him: yes, it's in this drawer Me: what? You sure? This one *points* Him: yes Me: heh, ok. let me see. *opens the drawer* reaction: Lovely.

I guess he already knows bands such as Bathory, Celtic Frost, Hellhammer, Venom, Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and so on, these classic bands with a pretty big status within the black and thrash genre. Here's a few lesser known bands you should check out: NME were one of the early blak thrashers, playing in a similar style as Venom, just more blackened. Sabbat were one of the first extreme metal bands from Asia, playing black metal in the begining before transforming into black/thrash in 99. Lots of people consider their early outputs black/thrash as well, but I don't. For me it's pure black metal as black as only black metal can be. One of the best bands ever. Aura Noir is an "all star" Norwegian black/thrash band with members from Cadaver, Dødheimsgard, Mayhem, Ved Buens Ende and more. One of the more legendary black/thrash bands around. Bulldozer is another legendary band, released some fantastic albums in the 80's. Abigail & Barbatos is the bands of Yasuyuki Suzuki, a legendary Japanese black metaller. Abigail started out as a pure black metal band but got thrasier after the first album, and Barbatos is a mroe punky version of Abigail. He also have a black/thrash band with Joel Grind of Toxic Holocaust called Tiger Junkies. Nocturnal is one of the many bands of Avenger, playing raw, teutonic black/thrash in the vein of old Detruction, Sodom and Kreator. Cruel Force is a Bathory-worship band. One of the best out of the newer black/thrash bands IMO. The Rise of Satanic Might is a modern classic IMO. Sauron plays raw, yet catchy black/thrash of the purest kind. I could probably continue forever. Love me some good black/thrash like.

No, saying that they went mainstream of pretty far off. This is something they've done ever since their second album. All three Memoria Vetusta albums have this kind of style. Epic and majestic, and pretty straight forward compared to the rest, but it's not mainstream at all. It's just the concept for these albums, while other albums have other sounds. And I'm not too fond of the direction Toxic Holocaust have taken. I prefer their first two albums and stuff released until 2006, as well as Joel Grind's solo projects Joel Grind and War Ripper. I prefer both those to newer Toxic Holocaust as well.

I don't own a decent cam so the quality is fucking awful, but a picture is a picture. Summoning - Minas Morgul Summoning - Dol Guldur Summoning - Nightshade Forests All on tapes as you can see.

I watched the extended version of both The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey only had something like 12-13 extra minutes, and most of it wasn't of very high value. But it did help the pacing a lot, and the meeting with Elrond changed the tone of the film drastically. So yeah, I liked it. But if I had owned it on DVD/Blu-Ray already I wouldn't have bought it again before I found it used, so a very low price. Other than that, still a good film, and sady still one of the visually ugliest films I've ever seen. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug however had something like 25 minutes extra, and this is exactly what an extended version should be like. A massive improvement from the regular version. The meeting with Beorn, Gandalf in Dol Guldur and Gandalf and Thorin at the Prancing Pony should never have been cut, especially not the meeting with Beorn. It's snacks for fans of the book. Awesome! Better pacing, a cooler overall tone, and despite being 25 minutes longer, it felt 25 minutes shorter than the regular version. Great film and such an improvement from the first one. Better visually as well, but still way too plasticy for my taste. But this is a great film!

Close enough.

Yes, neither Fen or Drudkh are the same as Agalloch, but they do have soem of the same atmosphere IMO. Despite being very different there's something very simiar there as well. As for Drudkh you should check out more albums. The first four, Microcosmos, Eternal Turn of the Wheel and Handful of Stars are all great. Yeah, solo project. Hope the album will come soon. Been looking forward for it for a long, long time. Yeah, hiatus. No idea if they'll come back or not. Seems like their main songwriter, Jyri Vahvanen, is busy with another band and wants to use his time on that. Shame, if you ask me at least. They were slowly getting THERE again, and then they go on hiatus. I think a lot of fans are disappointed with the new Blut aus Nord because it isn't as unique as the stuff they've released since The Work Which Transforms God. This is more straight forward and similar to other bands, than what most of their albums have been. It's back the roots and what they did on their first two albums. This albums gives me a bit of early Blut aus Nord feeling, a bit Drudkh feeling, a bit Cascadian black metal scene feeling and a bit of early Emperor. And I think it's understandable that the fans of their twisted avant-garde material might feel disappinted with this. For me it's their best since The Mystical Beast of Rebellion. The addition of Gionata Potenti on drums is a great addition. Fantastic drummer. Love his drumming in Macabre Omen and Nocternity.

From the tried-to-look-like-Venom-then-failed session. Should be around 1993. The biggest problem was that Satoshi was wearing a pair of sandals... Love these pictures. They're looking very silly and far from evil, but it's got so much charm. Also: Interesting. It's especially interesting since Mirai said in the begining of the album that this would be one of their most straight forward albums ever. Not it's starting to look as if it might become on of their most complex abums ever. People should check out The Meads of Asphodel while they're on it as well. Stay away from the last two albums, but check out everything before ...Jesus the Jew. Excellent band. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohooCrEncCk At times very Sigh-esque, without being very similar at all. Very different atmosphere and feeling, but they still manage to create something that reminds me much of Sigh. Started out as a very original symphonic black metal band and got more and more experimental. Venom and Bulldozer meets Discharge and GHB meets Hawkwind, or something like that. It's just weird. And to keep it slightly on topic the Meads... song features Mirai on synth. So it's not 100% off topic.

Yeah, but others might have a different view on it. But me, I'd never been abe to tell that Master of Brutality, The Second Coming, Houses of the Unholy and Thy Kingdom Scum all have different guitar players. It just doesn't sound that way.

I'll just treat this as a regular Sigh thread. Taken at London Dungeon in 1994. It was our first tour outside of Japan.

House on Haunted Hill - I've reviewed a couple of William Castle's films on here before (Homicidal, The Tingler, Straight-Jacket) and as I said back then, this guy is known as the king of gimmicks. This guy made low-budget films and earned a lot on them, much due to his genius gimmicks. But to me, this guy had a lot more to contribuate with than just silly, or in my eyes, awesome, gimmicks. To me, William Castle was a proper genius film maker. Even when he tries to cash in on other film makes' sucess, like he did with Homicidal, he hits bulls eye. House on Haunted Hill are probably the best William Castle film ever, and it offers a few proper scary and chilling scenes, like. Some will make you shiver and it'll put a proper scare down your spine. Veincent Price is fantastic and Carol Ohmart, Richard Long and Carolyn Craig are all great as well. But Vincent Price, and even more so William Castle are the stsrs here. Great atmosphere, great mystery and great fun. One of the best haunted house films there is.

And that's the thing. Church of Misery have had something like 7-8 guitarists, 4-5 vocalists and a few drummers. So Church of Misery losing a few members don't say much. It might take time to get the new members aboard, but that shouldn't be too hard for a band with Church of Misery's status. And throughout Church of Misery's history, there's never been a unique guitarist or drummer. They've all been replaceable. Tatsu's bassing however, it 70% of this band's sound. So as long as he stays, as we know he will, it won't be a problem.

Been spinning both Thou Shalt Suffer and Old Funeral on repeat since yesterday. Both are fantastic. Thou Shalt Suffer is Samoth, Ihsahn and Ildjarn's first proper band, before Samoth and Ihsahn went on to form Emperor and Ildjarn formed Ildjarn. The album is way better than anything Emperor ever did to be honest, and on par with Ildjarn's best albums (Strength and Anger, Forest Poetry, Hardangervidda). This is one of themore unique death metal release of its time. Haunting and atmospheric with a bit of synth here and there which properly adds to the atmosphere. In many ways this is death metal with the atmosphere and feeling of black metal. Imagine old, old Emperor remade into death metal. Quite unique actually. Old Funeral are more standard death metal in the vein of old Morbid Angel, but awesome as fuck. Abbath and Demonaz of Immortal, Varg Vikernes of Burzum and Jørn Inge Tunsberg of Hades played in this band before moving towards black metal with their other bands. Both recommended for fans of old school death metal with great, lo-fi productions and lenty of charm. This old picture of Varg Vikernes during his time in Old Funeral is also one of the coolest pictures ever:

Ryutaro Arimura. Because.

I've made a list with my favourite death metal releases for both the Swedish and Finnish scene, and even though Norway never had much of a death metal scene and more importantly not a specific sound, I thought it would suck not to do one anyway because there came some very good death metal releases from Norway in the early-mid 90's. 1. Darkthrone - Soulside Journey 2. Old Funeral - The Older Ones 3. Thou Shalt Suffer - Into the Woods of Belial 4. Mortem - Slow Death 5. Cadaver - Hallucinating Anxiety 6. Vomit - Rotting 7. Darkthrone - Goatlord 8. Molested - Blod-draum 9. Cadaver - ...in Pains 10. Amputation - Slaughtered in the Arms of God Good stuff.

October might be over, but my love for horror is still present and I'm not gonna stop watching horror films just yet. The Vampire Lovers - Erotic and extremely sexy vampire flick from 1970 with a stunning Ingrid Pitt in the lead, with suport from Peter Cushing, Madeline Smith, Kate O'Mara and more. Gothic Hammer horror with plenty of atmosphere and nudity. My kind of horror. It's pretty daring for its time, openly flirting with lesbian themes, and feels fresh because of its romance, without being anything like Twilight and such. Great atmosphere, beautiful girls, good acting and superb direction. I really liked this film! Ingrid Pitt might not be Barbara Steele, but god she was fantastic. Great actress, beautiful and very seducing. She was made for this kind of roles.