Bear

Kill the Poker Player! - A low-budget giallo dressed as a spaghetti western? Hellz yeah! Colorful characters, interesting plot with a great mystery that threw me around. Took me a long time to understand who was the proper bad guy.  Nice atmosphere and direction and everything. A hidden gem for sure!

Tenement - Low-budget b-film about urban warfare in a time where a lot of these films were made. Super gritty, dark and fun. Imagine Assault on Precinct 13 set in a tenement with poor direction and even worse acting and effects. But to be honest that just sets the mood. It's exploitation of the cheesy and super trashy kind. I love this kind of filth.

This shit is going on a world tour. Will be ordering tickets for Sweden today. That is gonna be immense and a concert to remember for sure.

Just scream out if you're not too familiar with the films that's available there. I can easily pick out must-sees from the list as I've seen it all anyway.

So Bron suddenly got really active. Formed in 2014 and released an excellent demo, then the next demo was released in 2016 (also excellent) and an album in 2016. Then in 2017 he's released two EPs and two full lenghts.

Зарђала Круна is a mix of ambient and black metal.

White City, Black Circle is more of an ambient release. Urban ambient maybe? Very different from his other releases. Completely different atmosphere.

Ruins is more of a folkish ambient release. Not as cold and wintery sounding as the black metal stuff, but it's got that nature atmosphere to it.

Where the Leaden Dawn Meets Iron Shores is a return to the atmospheric, ambient black metal of the past. Really good album!

It's a bit fun tho as the main guy said that Зарђала Круна would be his last album with black metal elements for quite some time, but it took less than a year before he released a black metal album again. Well, I don't complain. Sounds a lot like Evilfeast and Forest Silence, and I like it a lot. Perfect war walks in the snowy forests.

Really stoked about Insidious 4: The Last Key. Adam Robitel really impressed me with his debut The Taking of Deborah Logan, so I am really looking forward to seeing what he can do with the universe of Insidious. Hearing great things about the trailer.

https://archive.org/details/SciFi_Horror

http://publicdomainmovies.net/science_fiction_and_horror

I think they are basically the same, but you'll find plenty classics there. In fact, you'll find a crazy amount of classics from the 70's and earlier. There's also a great amount of cult films and pure cheese as well.

Cradle of Filth's Cryptoriana - The Seductiveness Of Decay isn't quite as good as Hammer of the Witches, but it's very nice. They reuse much of the same elements, but it sounds a bit less black metal again. But the songwriting is really nice and there's a lot of fun going on in each track. Love the gothic atmosphere. And with gothic I don't talk about gothic as in gothic metal, but gothic as in victorian, gothic horror. I love it!

Sounds like a solid 8/10.

Just say hi or smile at them and move along. Simplest of things really.

B-side? One of the twon single tracks on Gekisei. Cover songs, but still their best b-side tracks.

https://ir-fog.bandcamp.com/album/n-wa

New Inferno Requiem is up on bandcamp. Quality again from these Taiwanese black metallers. Sounds like Judas Iscariot meet old Gorgoroth (demo and debut album) with a slight asian twist on it.  Sounds great, even tho the drums sounds a bit fucked. And at times they sound really fucked. But it works. Nice atmosphere throughout.

Concert with Vulture Industries tonight. Started off as more of a Arctururs rip offish band, but later moved towards a less black metal and extreme metal-sound and into a more avant-garde and progressive path, with Devil Doll as a main inspiration. Or, at least I think so, because with every album they've gotten more and more Devil Doll-ish. Which is awesome as Devil Doll are one of my favourite bands.

Seen them live before and it was quite special. Really good on-stage, but they did some things which were really awkward in a cool and fun way. Really looking forward to it.

Hope they play the two songs I posted. Blood Don't Eliogabalus is their own interpretation of the classic, 25 minute long Devil Doll epic Eliogabalus. Really cool and unique, and it just blends Vulture Industries' own sound with the classic sound of Devil Doll. Love it!

I've posted some stuff about Unleashed in the past, a band it took me along time to get into. Generally considered a 2nd/3rd rate death metal band, but their debut album is top notch and their demos are even better. This release which consists of the bands two first demos are up there with the best of late 80's/early 90's Swedish death metal. It's up there with the Dismember demos Last Blasphemies and Reborn in Blasphemy, Nihilist's three demos Premature Autopsy, Only Shreds Remain and Drowned, the Grave demo and single Sick Disgust Eternal and Tremendous Pain, Nirvana 2002's demo Disembodied Spirits, God Macabre's The Winterlong..., Carnage's demo Infestation of Evil, Tiamiat's single A Winter Shadow, and a few more as the very best of Swedish death metal.

Huge fan of Swedish death metal in general, and you amount of great albums and EPs released between the late 80's and until 93-94 in insane. But the majority of the Swedish bands were at their best when they released their demos.

The Utter Dark / Revenge... It's obviously raw and heavy and really brutal, much due to the production of both demos which are exceptional. Far from polished, but the rawness of the production just brings forth the brutality and rawness of it all. This is 25 minute of pure death metal. Rotten, putrid and fantastic!

Antibirth - Another film I checked out because of the poster, and another film that provided a good amount of fun. The film is pretty slow and starts off as a great drama based on the white trash characters Lou (Natasha Lyonne) and Sadie (Chloë Sevigny) wich both is as well-written as they are well-acted, before it slowly start moving towards more gruesome territory. More specifically body-horror which is the opposite of mainstream horror that gets shown in the cinemas and on TV over here. It's bizarre and full of weirdness, and It sure did keep me interested for its entire playtime. Not exceptional, but real fun nonetheless.

That ending. Holy fucking cow!

Yeah, it was good. I really like how the dad, the main metalhead, is portrayed in the film. Got long hair, loves metal, got tattoo's and wants to paint something that's not fucking butterflies, but at the end of the day he's just a man who's trying to do what he loves at the same time as he does his best as a father, a very, very loving one as well. Then all these questions comes up. But he's not portrayed as the metalhead stereotype, but rather as how metalheads for most part is. Was very well done.

Baskin - Baskin, what the hell is that, you say? Baskin is the feature-lenght debut of Turkish director Can Evrenol who only had a series of short films to his name, one of them a short called Baskin which this is based upon.

I'm not gonna say too much about the film, because it's incredibly hard to do so. It's a very unique film. It's got brilliant surrealistic and dreamy atmosphere, is stylish as fuck and got lovely special effects, and a really wicked story. Well, everything about this film is WICKED. I've seen a lot of people compare this to Nicolas Winding Refn and David Lynch, but the best way to describe this film is by saying it plays along as if it was directed by none other than the godfather of gore himself (the second one, that is) , Lucio Fulci, but on a mad amount on acid, with help from Clive Barker and Dario Argento, also on some acid. This was a wicked, crazy and surreal trip down to hell. Magnificent!

I will have to re-watch this sometime during the week. Probably on saturday, after a few beers. Looking forward to it!

9,5/10

Beyond the Gates - With a budget of only 300k, Jackson Stewart is able to create a film that both awakes the 80's nostalgia and gives us something that feels very fresh in 2017. Beyond the Gates plays like a homage to Italian horror of the 80's with great 80's aesthetics, and especially Lucio Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy (City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery), but without just copying the films. But if I were to truly give you a picture of how the film is, I'd say it's the horror version of 1995's Jumanji, a mix of Jumanji and the Gates of Hell trilogy. Or something along those lines.

The whole idea and concept of the film is sweet as fuck, especially for someone who still truly loves VHS films. But with a budget that small, it does have certain flaws. The biggest complaint that I've got is that the game and games isn't developed enough, and isn't given enough time. 10 more minutes divided on the games would've helped made it just so much better.

Some really sweet special effects too, guys, and Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, From Beyond, We Are Still Here) is still fantastic.

But I really, really liked it, and ended up with a score of 8,5/10.

Btw, I checked this out based on the combination of the title and sweet movie posters:

He is.

The Devil's Candy - Sean Byrne impressed the world with The Loved Ones , six years later he's back with another horror film. This time around he offers a pretty unique and original horror film with surprisingly well-made and thought through characters, an interesting plot and with a very cool soundtrack. The film has a strong 80's vibe to it and is clearly inspired by the satanic panic era of that time, which is something I always found nice.

Not only does the soundtrack consist of lots of metal, but both father and her daughter are metal fans, wear lots of metal t-shirts (Slayer, Metallica, Motorhead) and the daughter's bedroom is full of metal and punk posters. And not just the usual and big ones. Melvins, Ghost, Bikini Kill are among the posters.

The soundtrack offers lots of standard tracks from bands such as Metallica, Slayer, Pantera og Cavalera Conspiracy, but the highlight is the use of Sunn O))). Which completely caught me off guard. Got mad chills every single time Sunn O))) came on. Massive!

The Void was so good that the first thing I did when the end credits were over was to rewatch it. What a fucking film! As a huge fan of the Astron-6 team my expectations were ridiculously high for the film, but it went way above all of my expectations. It's not original, but it captures a Lovecraftian feeling and atmosphere rarely seen in film these days with brilliant atmosphere throughout, and monster designs and special effects worth dying for. This is perfection as far as Lovecraftian horror goes.

The film was 80's through and through, and a really nice mix of The Thing, From Beyond, Hellraiser, The Beyond og Assault on Precinct 13, Lovecraftian horror in general og Silent Hill.

I'm left with much of the same feeling I was left with after watching films like The Thing, From Beyond and Hellraiser for the first time. It won't take me many days before I rewatch this masterpiece.

4 hours ago, Jigsaw9 said:

Finally giving a good listen to Cradle of Filth's "Dusk... and Her Embrace: The Original Sin" recording, what a treat! So cool to hear this alternative (or, well, original) version of the now-classic album. The sound quality is perfect too, and ofc the songs themselves rip like hell.

 

Excited for the new album too from what I've heard so far. Gonna hold off until it officially gets released, won't spoil myself with the leak.

Oh yes! The Original Sin is just as good as the classic Dusk... if you ask me.  Very, very different sounding, and not only in terms of production, but the synth is so different. Less gothic. Which makes it a whole different album. But both are 6/6 as far as I am concerned. Perfect black metal albums!

Didn't know the new one leaked. Only heard two songs, but both were great, and very different from what we've got to know Cradle of Filth for. Love how they suddenly break into melodic death metal in one of the previous songs. But not the weakass pussy shit melodic death metal most people enjoy. The good kind.

I have long wanted to watch the Undisputed series, but I never got that far. Until recently.

Undisputed - Really, really disappointing. I really like Wesley Snipes, I enjoy Ving Rhames and I adore Walter Hill as a director. But this did not do it for me. A mediocre boxing-drama that doesn't offer enough hights. The drama is disappointing, the characters mostly boring and the action is weak. 5/10

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing - Isaac Florentine takes over the direction, and the entire cast is new, even though Michael Jai White plays George "Iceman" Chambers who was played by Ving Rhames in the first film. But this is a different film in every way. Gone is the standard drama and boring bullshit. Michael Jai White's character was a antagonist in the first film, but returns as a protagonist in this film. And he is good. But even better is Scott Adkins who rules supreme in the film, and his character, Boyka, is terrific. He's not goot much meat on his bones, but he's just totally badass throughout the entire film. But the real star? The choreograph whos name I don't remember at the moment. What a fucking brilliant choreography. The way the action is choreographed, performed and filmed is very untypical Hollywood, and big budget directors won't even dream of including fights this good in their movies. And this is a fucking direct-to-video film. But the action is superb. Very asian, especially in the way it's filmed. 8/10

Undisputed III: Redemption - Scott Adkins and his character Boyka goes from being the antagonist to being the protagonist, and it works really well. Best character in the previous film, and he still reigns supreme in this film. So does the choreography which is again mindblowing! And once again very untypical of an american film. Amazing! 8/10

Boyka: Undisputed IV - The first film in the series not to have an antagonist being the protagonist, instead it continues the focus and story of Boyka. And it works. Probably the deepest and most story-oriented film of the series, but it's really well done and it works really well. But again, Scott Adkins and his character Boyka is truly amazing. But as with the previous two films, the choreography and direction os the action scenes are the true star. So fucking gorgeous. So sexy. That shit turns me the fuck on. 8/10

The fucking Guyver kick, man. Heeeeeeellz yeah!

Evil - 邪悪を讃えよ(Rites Of Evil)

This is by far my favourite Japanese release of the year. A mix of several of the classic first wave black metal bands such as Bathory, Sabbat, Sodom, Hellhammer and Sarcofago. This is black metal as good as it gets in 2017 tbh. 

Oh dear, fuck me sideways. This is just too good. Old school sounding dungeon synth in the way of early Mortiis. So good!

Credit where credit is due. Myrkur's black metal stuff is trash, but this was a lovely collab. Chelsea Wolfe is always amazing, so that sure helps.

It's funny you complain about the amount of blood and gore in modern horror films tbh. Back in the 50's they complained about the amount of blood compared to the 40's as well. And in the 60's they complained about the amount of blood in 60's horror compared to 50's horror. And in the 70's they complained about the amount of blood in 70's horror compared to 60's horror. And in the 70's they complained about the amount of blood and gore in 70's horror compared to 60's horror. And in the 80's they complained about the amount of blood and gore in 80's horror compared to 70's horror.

It is natural to find other ways to entertain when people have seen it all, and relying on more extreme scenes is a natural way to go tbh. But there's not been a bigger focus on blood and gore in the last 17 years than it was in the 70's and especially 80's. The 80's was when horror cinema really reached the top as far as blood and gore goes. The difference in todays horror cinema is that it's often been more realistic and cynical, and often paired with a much bleaker, colder and destructive atmosphere. But it's not any more of it than in early years.

As far as blood and gore goes, doesn't really get much bloodier and gorier than films like Evil Dead, Braindead, Story of Ricky Oh, The Thing, The Fly and so on, does it? A few Japanese films can match the insanity and amount of blood and gore of these films , but not many.

And if you look at the more extreme and disturbing films of the 2000's, such as Martyrs, Irréversible and Inside, they're not really any more extreme and disturbing than films like Begotten, Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma, The Last House On The Left, Nekromantik, Men Behind The Sun, I Spit On Your Grave, Cannibal Holocaust, Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood and so on.

So the thing about it being more focus on blood, gore and disturbing themes is a myth. What is not a myth however is that there's been a much bigger focus on cheap, lame and lazy-as-fuck jump scares that's absolutely laughable in their predictability in the 2000's. Jump scares are nothing new in horror films and have been present ever since the mid 70's, but back then, and especially in the 80's when it came with full force, film makers used them differently. And they built up to the jump scares differently. In todays cinema you can both see and hear the jump scare long before it actually hits the screen, both because if you're seen 15 horror films with jump scares you've seen all the ways it can be used, but also because everyone uses them the same way. The way the scene is filmed, the way the music/ambiance is used, is just the same as in the previous film containing jump scares, which again used them the exact same way as the previous film containing jump scares and so on. 

So there's something to complain about in modern horror cinema. The use of lazy jump scares, and let's be honest, 999/1000 jump scares ARE predictable and lazy as fuck.

Bear out brah