Bear

Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht is fantastic, though not quite on par with Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens. But it's amongst the best vampire films ever made anyway. However, it's not an actual remake of Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, though. It's more like a different adaption of the novel that pays homage to Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, rather than a remake. The soundtrack by Popol Vuh is amazing too. Deserves a mention for sure.

Yeah, I think the nudity has a bit to do with authenticity, as it does feel a bit more real that way. At least to me. And this wasn't exactly grown up, respectable men we saw in these videos. It's kinda normal for a lot of men to focus on tits and ass when filming videos like that. I also have to add that I have always appreciated nudity in most horror genres. When it comes ot ghost stories and haunted house films, I can do without, even though it doesn't bother me there either. I like nude girls after all. But I think nudity adds a lot to the fun in slashers, cannibal films and splatters as an example. A huge part of the fun.

V/H/S/2 - Well, the concept for this is exactly the same as V/H/S but with a lot less emphasis on atmosphere and more on gore and actual scares, and there's a lot more effort into special effects here. There's lots of them. I wouldn't call this any better than the first, but it's not worse either. I'd say they're equal. Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett returns, but this time Barret does more than just writing, he directs as well, and he does very well. Tape 49/frame narrative is diected by Simon Barret, and he does extremely well in his short. The short does well in linking everything together, and it's a very atmospheric film with some chilling moments. But it isn't as good as the frame narrative in the first one. Not even close. Phase I Clinical Trials is dircted by Adam Wingard, and as always he delivers the goods. At times very chilling, but it could've been done a lot better. But it was very good nonetheless. A Ride in the Park is directed by Eduardo Sánchez and Gregg Hale, be known for The Blair Witch Profect. Another good one, and this time we get some insane special effects. The whole thing reeks of mid-70's-early 80's Italian horror films. You'll know what I mean when you see it. Good film, and the fun one out of them. Probably my least favourite of the lot, though. Safe Haven is directed by Gareth Huw Evans, best known for his insane martial arts-action film The Raid: Redemption, and this is by far my favourite here. This one is batshit crazy, to put it right there. Insane film with some great atmosphere and lots of creepy moments. This segment alone is worth your time. Jesus, one of the most insane films I have ever seen. Crazy. Weird. Creepy. Fucked up. Freakin' awesome! Slumber Party Alien Abduction is directed by Jason Eisener, best known for Hobo with a Shotgun. The second best of the bunch, delivering both humour and chills. So there you've got it. As a whole it's not as good as the first one, but its got the best segment of them all which takes it up to the level of the first one. Geat film!

Ended up giving Noroi: The Curse 7/10 myself. Very good film, but not amazing or anything. It just lacks something. Some of the same as The Blair Witch Project lacks. I can't really put it into words. Both are good, but there's something missing. I haven't seen either in many, many years though, so might think different about them today if I rewatch 'em.

Yeah, I kinda do and I cook 85% of all food here. It's always exciting to try new things, but I can't help to get pissed off whenever it doesn't turn out as should, even if it ends up tasting fantastic. Heh.

Yeah, The Conjuring is great. As nagaram says it doesn't try to to anything new, it's just the same old, same old. It's a film that does whatever it can to imitate the horror films of the 70's, and it does it really well. However, there's not a single touch of originality to be found anywhere in the film, so if you want something fresh then The Conjuring is the wrong place to search. It's done before, but it's still so well-made it's hard not to dig it. Atmospheric and moody.

Looking forward to both V/H/S films. The first one was great. And Frankenstein's Army is fantastic. The monster designs are absolutely killer throughout the whole film. Original and unlike anything I've ever seen. Shutter - Must be close to 10 years since I saw this with my brother and was scared shitless. Not as frightening now as then, but still a great film with thick atmosphere and a great story. There's a few jump scares which might feel a bit cheap, but they're not annoying and they don't take anything away from the atmosphere. The rest here is very good. There's not really much to say about this film. Great film!

Bölzer is a must-see. They will wipe the floor with Behemoth. I didn't hear anything but praise for them after their concert yesterday, and no matter where they play they're only getting positive responses from people. Absolutely crushing!

Laudata Nex Magick Vol. 1 was fantastic. Six bands whom all delivered high quaity music. Not a single band was worse than very good. The whole thing kicked off around 7pm on friday with Sortilegia. A female handling the guitar and vocals and a drummer. Nothing more. Dark, evil black metal in the vein of Mare. This was a fantastic concert both music-, visual- and atmosphere-wise. Top notch. Next band up was Urfaust, another two-man band with guitars, vocals and drums only. Great concert with lots of atmosphere. Fantastic stuff. Vemod ended the eveing with 50 minutes of beautiful black metal. Very mesmerizing and good, but the biggest disappointment of all the band. It wasn't bad, but where I stood (moved around to see if I could get better sound) the bass drum sounded awful. It sounded as if they had triggered it, but appaently it was only in the middle we had that problem. Other wise it was top notch. Saturday kicked off with another two-man band, Bölzer, again a guitarist and vocalist and a drummer. This was fantastic. Second best gig this weekend. So fucking heavy and massive. How two men manage to create something this massive, not only on record, but live is just weird. How on earth? Epic black metallers Cult of Fire continued the evening. We were sitting outside utnil we heard they were gonna get on any minute now, and as soon as we got inside the door we were met with a wall of smoke of incense, and even then, before we'd gotten up to the second floor where they were gonna play the mood were set. This was the best gig for me. A bit troubling sound throught the concert, but it wasn't awful and the stage show was amazing. They looked fantastic, the stage was fantastic and it was amazing. The vocalist moved a lot like Papa from Ghost. Lots of similarities there. loved it! Also, four peole on stage, but no bass here either which makes it 4/6 bands with no bass, and 3/6 with only two people. Awesome! Ritualistic black metallers Mare ended the weekend with a fantastic concert. Dark and ritualistic, just as expected. Well, one of the best concerts I've been to. Everything was so very well worked out. 6/6 for the whole thing. As good as it gets. Already ready for a part 2.

Oculus - This has gotten a lot of praise both by friends and randoms, so I had pretty high expectations to this one. But I am let down. It tries way too hard to be smart and original, and it just loses itself into nothingness. Every single time it's onto something, the atmosphere is getting there it just fucks up and has to start over again. Every. Single. Time. I didn't like this at all. I really thought it was poor as fuck.

V/H/S - This is a film that's gotten a lot of attention since its release, and people seem to either praise it or tear it apart. You either love it or you hate it. For most part, that's my impression at least. This isn't as ambitious as The ABCs of Death, but it works a lot better because it's shorter, with less directors and the directors are given time to do more than just making a trailer/teaser or a short shocker. You have a main narrative, and the other short films are linked together in that, and all films, from the main narrative to the shorts, are found footage. It's nto just a bunch of random shorts. Tape 56/frame narrative is directed by Adam Wingard, the man behind You're Next. This is the main narrative that holds it all together, and it jumps from this to the other films then back to this and so on, but despite this it's an excellent film with lots of atmosphere and creepy moments. It never loses its way, despite being cut into several parts, and this shows some of Adam Wingard's qualities as a director. Not the best, but very good. Amateur Night is directed by David Bruckner, know for The Signal. I didn't like The Signal at all, but this one is very good. Creepy as fuck, and just very well-made. Not my favourite of the lot, but very good. Second Honeymoon is made by a favourite of mine, Ti West, known for The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers. Again he disappoints me with his shirt, but unlike on The ABCs of Death I'm not disappointed because he doesn't give a fuck and don't even try. This is a very good short, and I am just disappointed because of my extremely high expectations. But other than that, very good short. Tuesday the 17th is made by Glenn McQuaid, someone I've heard of but not seen anything by. This one is my favourite of the lot. This is absolutely fantastic. Atmospheric, creepy and at times even scary as fuck. This is simply brilliant. Masterpiece! The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger is made by Joe Swanberg, a man with a huge filmaography whom I don't know shit about. This is good, but pobably the weakest of the lot. While it does manage to be creepy at times, it's a bit uneven and not fucked enough. But it's a good one. 10/39/89 is made by a quartet of filmmakers known as Radio Silence. I am not familiar with them, but I thought this one was very good. The most amotspheric of the lot, and that's where it delivers. Very good stuff. SO as you can see, I am one of the lovers. I thought this was fantastic. This is found footage done right IMO, but I can understand the negativism towards this film. Can't wait till I get to watch V/H/S/2 and V/H/S/Viral. Exciting.

I can't stand Scarlet Johansson. One of the worst out of the bigger actresses and actors during my lifetime.

Since I am gonna get busy with concerts tomorrow and satuday I had to watch two films today, so I started early. The ABCs of Death - I've been wanting to watch this for a long time as some of the more impressive newcomers of the horror genre takes a part of this, and it was a bit of everything within the genres of horror and comedy. I love the concept and gathering lots of newer faces within the genre of horror is a cool ide, but 120 minutes is a bit short and it should've been doubled and released in two parts IMO. I'll just go through each letter and say what I thought about them. A is made by Nacho Vigalondo, best known for his fantastic sci-fi film Los Cronocrímenes. While it is a well-made short, I just can't help but feel as if it's just the climax to a full-lenght film. Cool enough, but it's just not enough. B is made by Adrian Garcia Bogliano, someone I know of but probably haven't seen a film by. This is one of my favourites of the lot. Despite being short it feels like a proper film. Well-made and entertaining. C is made by Ernesto Diaz Espinoz, someone I'm not familiar with. It's a decent enough flick, but deserves to be bigger film. D is made by Marcel Sarmiento, again someone I'm not familiar with. This is a very good one, and one of the better on this film. E is made by Angela Bettis, best known for her role as May in the horrorfilm May and Carrie in the film Carrie (2002). This was pretty boring IMO. Not awful, just not entertaining either. F is made by Noboru Iguchi, best known for his work with the new wave of Japanese splatters such as The Machine Girl and Robo-Geisha. I really like some of the films made by Noboru Iguchi so I had high expectations to ths one, but this film is just awfully lazy, and it comes off as a disrespectful joke towards the people behind The ABCs of Death. This is an abomination and should never have been included. Among the worst shit I have ever seen. G is made by Andrew Traucki, another one I am not familiar with. This isn't as bad as Noburu Iguchi's F, but it's stilla simle and lazy film. There's abosolutely nothing of value here. H is made by Thomas Malling, known for his action comedy Kommandør Treholt & ninjatroppen. Not seen that film myself, but I've got high hopes for it. This segment however is another abomination. There's nothing of value here. Not quite as bad as F, but not too far away. I is made by Jorge Michel Grau, another one I am not too familiar with. I've only seen a remake of one of his films. Cool enough without being too exciting. J is made by Yûdai Yamaguchi, best known for his great Meatbal Machine. Uh, interesting, but a bit of a joke to be quite honest. K is made by Anders Morgenthaler, unknown guy for me. This is another abomination. Nothing of value here. L is made by Timo Tjahjanto, another one I know of but haven't seen anything by. This is a pretty sick, but entetaining short. M is made by Ti West, best known for the masterpiece The House of the Devil and the fantastic The Innkeepers. This is obviously made for shock value only, and it's absolutely dreadful. Lazy shit. A huge disappointment. N is made by Banjong Pisanthanakun, best known for the amazing Shutter. This was very funny, and well-made. Good stuff. O is made by Héléne Cattet and Bruno Forzani, known for Amer and The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears. This is a very typical film for them. The giallo and Argento influences are clearly shown as always, and while it doesn't offer much as far as a story or anything goes, it's one of my favourites. A pleasure to the eye. P is made by Simon Rumley, another one I know of but haven't seen anything from. This was pretty meh. Didn't do nothing for me, and it was cut to death IMO. Q is made by Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, who's best known for the fantastic The Guest. This was an original and funny short, and one of the best here. This was really impressive. R is made by Srdjan Spasojevic, known for A Serbian Film. A huge step up from the dreadful A Serbian Film, that's for sure. Original and cool. S is made by Jake West, best known for the decent Doghouse. This was a decent one, but it feels a bit like an anti-drug commercial to be honest. T is made by Lee Hardcastle, unknown guy for me. Pretty fun short, though not very impressive. But pretty fucked up in a good way. U is made by Ben Wheatley, someone I known of but haven't seen anything by. This is a well-made film, but it didn't do all that for me. V is made by Kaare Andrews, best known for his works with Marvel comics. Cool idea, poor execution. Didn't do nothing for me. W is made by Jon Schnepp, best known for Metapocalypse. A huge mess. An abomination. The worst along with F. Worthless piece of shit. X is made by Xavier Gens, best known for Frontière(s) and Hitman. Cool enough short. Not the best, but worthy of your time. Y is made by Jason Eisener, best known for the fantastic Hobo With a Shotgun. I wasn't too impressed with this. Was pretty boring. Z is made by Yoshihiro Nishimura, best known for his involement in the new wave of Japanese splatter scene with the great Tokyo Gore Police, as well as being a make-up artist specialist. This was a huge mess as well. It's saved by some of the specialeffects and crazyness, but it's a mess anyway. So there you have it. As I said early on; this is a bit of everything, ranging from fantastic to bloody fucking awful. But that's what you'll get when 26 different diectors/teams gets total freedom to do whatever they want as long as they keep it short. Is it woth seeing? Yes, I think so. Some of these were fantastic, and they make this woth seeing.

The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears - If you're familiar with giallos, then I'm sure you'll notice that even the title here is very giallo-inspired. The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears is the second feature lenght from Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, the French/Belgian(?) couple/friends behind 07's awesome neo-giallo Amer. They also directed a segment in The ABCs of Death. I was very impressed with Amer, an interesting and challenging neo-giallo which takes a lot from the genre, but also adds a lot more to it which made it to more than just another giallo homage. With The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears they go even more complicated and surreal, and I'd say less straightforward than Amer, and Amer was anything but straightforward in my eyes. The cinematography is great and it's beautifully shot, but there's a lot of weird dream sequences and flashbacks (sometimes with an altered frames per second rate), some violence and sexual perversion. And the soundtrack is as 70's as it gets and considering this is a neo-giallo with a of late 60's and 70's in it, it's fits perfectly. But you know what? Fuck trying to put this into words. Imagine Dario Argento, Satoshi Kon and Brian de Palma making a film together, and from the moment they start writing it and until the film is finished, they've had nothing more to eat than magic mushrooms and LSD. I think I will place it even with Amer at 8/10, but I will have to watch it a couple of more times to decide on it. This, just like Amer was, is a film that deserves a few rewatches before one decides on the quality of the film. Anyway, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzan's among most interesting filmmakers out there today, and I am waiting eagerly to see what they come up with next.

In a World... - A dramacomedy about a girl who wants to become a voice-over girl and do voice-overs for trailers, but the voice-over occupation is male-dominated and she's having a hard time getting there, most of all because her dad is one of the best there ever was. The plot is good and the whole feminism-thing is real feminism, not what way too many known as feminism today, the acting is good and the direction is very good. But the characters are less good and the script is lackluster at best. It just doesn't come off as believeable, and it is lazy written. The sublot with betrayal is awful. You don't even get the time to blink before it's over. It's a waste of time. But with that said, this wasn't awful, and director-writer-leading actor Lake Bell shows potential with her first feature lenght. Looking forward to her next film.

Mirai's been posting lots of rare Sigh photos lately. Maximum awesomeness! Mirai frm the first or second ever Sigh gig back in 1990 or something. Mirai from a gig with his Ramones cover band back in the early 90's. Mirai from around the time of Infidel Art This is the outtake for GFT back cover. We went to the river side at midnight for this photo shooting. I believe Yasuyuki from Abigail was with us, too. The riverside was shrouded by complete dark and we could not see anything and we realized that we had no way to push the button of the camera exactly coinciding to the fire breathing! So instead we just left the camera lens open for a few seconds and breathed fire during that and surprisingly the photos turned out to be much better than we had expected. This is pretty much rare, evil Satoshi. I believe this one is from 1991. This gig was hilarious. This was our third gig or so. We were asked to play at the newly opened venue in Tokyo. We didn't advertise the gig at all as we thought we'd be one of 10 bands to play. We were just a new born band and didn't have fans anyway. Then we loaded in to find out we were the only band to play that night and ended up in playing for 1 or 2 friends of ours. This happened 24 years ago. Apparently the shot of the moment I failed fire-breathing. Should be around "Infidel Art" era. And this is the one when I succeeded to spit fire. Looks pretty nice, doesn't it? Actually in 24 years of Sigh's history, we were a band with two guitarists for a few weeks. I believe it was 1992 and we even played one show with two guitarists. It didn't work so did not last long though. And yes, Satoshi and I were young. Satoshi's photo that was never used. Never used because of, well, as you see, the bad corpse painting. Satoshi played everything from guitar, bass to drums with Sigh. He's a really talented musician. However, he was never good at breathing fire... Unlike Satoshi, I have been always great at breathing fire. I was short-haired. This should be from some time in the beginning of the 2000s. And I haven't had a haircut at all since then. I believe this one was taken in 2006 or 2007 around the time Dr. Mikannibal joined the band. Somehow this shot was never used though. Just posted the last two since I was at it, but everything above are as awesome as it gets.

As far as female growlers goes, I can't realy think of too many who sounds very manly when growling. That itself is not something I consider a negative factor, though. I like plenty of female growlers who does not sound like men even when growling. But chicks like Runhild Gammelsæter from Thorr's Hammer, Dana Duffey from Mythic, Sharon Bascovsky from Derkéta, Koldovstvo from Sortilegia, Doomed Warrior from Into Darkness and Alicia Morgan from 13 are the few I can think of right now that would've fooled me. There's obviously more chicks, but I can't think of more right now.

It's the total oposite for me. I consider Asagi's growls to be a bit weak and powerless, but I think he sounds more manly, powerful and way better than Angela Gossow.

American Hustle - Jesus, what's all the fuzz about? Mediocre at best, and it's rarely at its best. Uninteresting douchebag characters which I wanted to just die already through the whole film, it's way too long and Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper are overacting so much it becomes a bit sad actually. Not was both Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams mistcast, but neither comes close to being believeable. Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K. and to some degree Christial Bales does allright, but that's basically it. The direction is pretty good, but it lacks feelings, charm and looks kinda uninspired IMO. I wonder how much money people got paid under the table not only to nominate this film and make a big fuzz about it, but to also make it win plenty of awards. Jesus.

The Cat o' Nine Tails - Dario Argento has said himself that he considers this to be among his worst films, something which is just insane. The Cat o' Nine Tails is Argento's second film, and while not as good as his first or many of the films made later, it is still classic Argento and classic giallo. Argento proved himself worthy already with his first film and already then could you see he was a genius film maker. The Cat o' Nine Tails is not as stylish as some of his later films, and it does therefore lack a bit of the Argentoism that we've gotten used to, but it's still a very Argentoish film and it's beautifully diected, as well as well-acted, well-shot, and topped of with a fantastic soundtrack by none other than Ennio Morricone that helps creating a great atmosphere. The plot is also very, very good, which could be said about the awesome killer too.

Jesus. Horror isn't necessary meant to be scary, you know.

Poltergeist - I haven't seen this film in years, so I couldn't really remember exactly how it was. It wasn't close to being as overall intense or creepy as I remembered, but it was actually even better than I remembered, and I remembered it as being a very good film. Lots of great humor, but it never takes anything away from the atmosphere, and there is a few genuinly scary scenes here, and at times it is also incredibly intense. But it's got great atmosphere, acting and plot, as well as fantastic special effects, and everything comes off as very credible which certainly helps the film. Great film overall. A few of the scenes just takes the cake. Incredible stuff. There's a few very annoying cuts, though, but I can look past that as everything else is fantastic. But I really wonder what happened there. Those cuts makes no sense what so ever. They're here!

I liked the mix of gritty thriller and supernatural horror they went for. Those two fits very well together. But the story was a bit of a mess. Both this and Sinister have great potentia. Should be re-written and remade.

Deliver Us from Evil - Scott Derrickson manage to impress me enough with the first half of Sinister to look forward to this film, even though the second half of Sinister was poor. But he was onto something great, so I had hoped he could bring that with him to this film. Did he? Well, yes and no. This film never reaches the hights of Sinister's first half, but unlike Sinister this doesn't suddenly turn into a joke. The film is a mix of gritty police thriller and horror, and it does well in blending these two genres. However, despite being atmospheric, it never reaches the hights it should've reached, and there's a few elements here I don't like. But at the end of the day this ain't much more than a Ghostbusters dressed up in a Halloween-constume, aimed at grown ups.

It's a bit harder and requiers a lot more work and time, as well as money (in the begining as you'll need some extra equipment), but as ong as you have the equipment it's not very comlecated. However, unless you choose to rip song by song, which is quite tiresome, you'll have to separate the tracks afterwards that's the hardest thing to do, and that's fairly easy. So a bit harder and more time consuming, but at the end of the day you only rip your rare vinyls and tapes, so it ain't a bother (for those who choose to do it). You're also right about the cover thing, but that also goes for a lot of CDs. I've got plenty of CDs that are either digipack or have a special case which you simply cannot change if damaged, such as this. But I am careful with all my tapes, vinyls and CDs, so this is not a problem for me. Never have been, and never will be. However, to take extra good cae of your vinyls you obviously have to buy plastic sleeves for your vinyls to protect them, and that adds some money to that. But it's not too expensive as long as you buy it off the internet.