MGMT - Flash Delirium!

A happy dance, isn't it? :) Although Halloween went by us a looong long time ago, there's nothing like a dancing pumpkinman to remind us of the warm fuzzy feelings some of us share for the delirious holiday. In any case, this short clip is just a tease for the brilliant promo video for MGMT's "Flash Delirium", which only confirms that the bands is rather dark beneath its shiny skin and that the "Kids" video was no coincidence. If you get the chance, do get this little gem of a single.

Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

As we approach our first birthday party, it's time to remind ourselves of the one true birthday horrorfest: Happy Birthday to Me! Released in the same year as My Bloody Valentine (1981), this film also got heavily hit by the censorship board for the gruesome deaths included and had a twist ending just because the producers felt it needed one. Regarded as cult classic, what particularly stands out about Happy Birthday to Me is how well it sits at the peak of the slasher genre next to the original Friday the 13th and Halloween 2 for pure joy of cutting and dicing while covering the required tropes in the manner of the most gleeful exploitation flicks. Just look at that trailer, ladies and gentlemen! It screams "Rock on!" all the way through and it's no surprise at all that Eli Roth chose it as the basis for his mock trailer Thanksgiving in the Grindhouse project. Now, of course Happy Birthday to Me is neither smart nor revealing in any way except maybe as a sign of the times it was made in, but trust you me: if there's one old school pick you really need for your Saturday night matinee, this must be it. Oh, and one cool trivia I got from the allmighty IMDB:

Most ads and posters for the film carried a photo of a young man about to be orally impaled with a skewer of meat and vegetables, with the slogan "John Will Never Eat Shish Kebab Again." However, there is no character in the movie with this name.

Enjoy!

Einstürzende Neubauten - Armenia

When I'm talking about industrial, this is what I'm talking about. Ugly, dirty, deviated, primal, dangerous... I can't put my finger on what makes the underlying mechanics work but when Einstürzende Neubauten go all out as they constantly did back in the 1980s, it feels like it's the music of humanity or more precisely, the music of humanity's creation. Oh, and it also looks like "Armenia" would have been Nosferatu's favorite karaoke song if he could feel anything at all. Blame Blixa Bargeld's shriek for your next nightmare.

True Blood Season 3: Nothing Like a Good Cup of Joe

The ad campaign for the third season of True Blood has kicked off in gloriously gruesome fashion. Poster No.1 out of 12 overall is now available for your viewing pleasure, as well as to inform you that the vampire series will be hitting the HBO screens (and the torrent world) on Sunday, June 13. 'Till then, we expect many more goodies to come our way.

Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Black Earth (2002)

Let's get a few facts cleared out: Bohren & Der Club of Gore is a German band that expands on the after-midnight horror jazz originally proposed by Angelo Badalamenti in his work for David Lynch's Twin Peaks. You like getting lost in the woods at night? Well, this is a record to drive home that feeling of evil hiding behind the trees and bushes. With that in mind, Bohren... are not a band to listen to during your spring break, and certainly not in any kind of sunshine. Put Black Earth on at 3 a.m., though, and boy do you have a surprise in store for you. There are few records out there that are truly unsettling and this is definitely one of them. The slow vibe that trudges somewhere between Miles Davis and Black Sabbath, the screaming instruments that break through the walls of silence like H.P. Lovecraft creatures, the sense of a serial killing being committed, they're all there waiting to flush out all hope and happiness you might be holding in your heart. And yet, this is gorgeous music, the soundtrack to all terrible beauty you have ever encountered in the long night walks to your home, the kind you leave on repeat 'till the waking hours of a new day. So, sit down in that comfy chair you have with a large cup of coffee in your hands, take out all the lights and drown yourself in Black Earth: trust me when I say this >>> there are few better things you could do today.

>>> Bohren & Der Club of Gore download

Note: If you get a chance to see the band live, do it by all means. The guys are incredible at transferring the mood of their recorded music to any surrounding they are given.

Dracula Dog Forever!

I'm not proud of this post, but damn it: it's perfection come to life... or should I say death?

Naked Lunch (1991)

There is a very good reason why William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch was considered unfilmable for such a long time. As David Cronenberg puts it, a film that strictly follows the book would "cost 100 million dollars and be banned in every country in the world." After all, there is a lot of weirdo drug usage on top of ultra-long scenes of the most freakish orgies and death scenes one could imagine spliced over these 150-or-so pages. If Naked Lunch wasn't so funny, it would have been one of the scariest pieces of art in the 20th century, particularly with its capacity to turn virtually every ordinary object or corner into something sinister and rotten.

But yeah, a film was made eventually and by none other than Cronenberg himself! The trick, however, is that the film does not follow the book at all, opting instead to borrow its atmosphere and combine it with the-making-of-Naked-Lunch plot that for some reason works. Maybe it's Peter Weller channeling Burroughs to the T or maybe it's the buggy typewriter that does the job but who knows, and at the end of the day, who cares: as long as it's grimy and full of mugwumps! In any case, here's the trailer for the thing - enjoy it if you can!

Zombie Identification Field Manual

It's only a promotional tool for George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead but this "Zombie Identification Field Manual" is quite fun. So, just in case you were wondering how to separate zombies from your neighbors now you can read this little .pdf here and prepare yourself for the next zombie apocalypse.

The Walking Dead

For some reason or other, I haven't written about Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead yet. Maybe I've been way too consumed reading this comic book series to think about writing my opinions/feelings down - and you know, at times, it's certainly been an emotional roller coaster! The thing is, there is no other piece of serialized horror literature at the moment that tops The Walking Dead for existential drama and sheer adrenaline-pumping action. A television series covering the comic was announced to be in production on August 11, 2009, and for once it felt like a completely natural move compared to the tone and composition of the source work.

I know what some of you may be thinking: "The zombie survival plot has been way overdone, so this comic cannot be that good." Well, yeah, initially the plot does feel rather trite, but the story moves so fast that you will get hooked by the 22nd page and you well not notice the point at which The Walking Dead obliterates your expectations, be they high or low. The story simply grows and grows, getting progressively more thought-provoking and interesting with each new issue, reaching smaller arch-climaxes over every 6 issues or so and big ones somewhere around the 24 issue mark.


The story follows former police officer Rick Grimes in his valiant search for his wife and child. Along the way, he meets up with survivors and together they must stay sharp, savvy, and hard as roaming packs of undead look to feast on them. This being a zombie comic, it has plenty of gore thrown in every direction but more importantly, it hits every heavy note in just the right way, making you feel for the characters at all times. The chief villain known as the Governor is particularly effective here what with his disdain for the living and love for his undead daughter: there is no way on earth he will leave you cold!

Now I usually give out links for downloads at the bottom of the post but this time I will make an exception: buy the damn thing, not only are all of the full volumes released so far well worth the price, they are also the only way for the comic to survive in the years to come given that it's fully independent. 'Nuff said!

Mothra VS. Godzilla (1964)

Here's a real classic for you! After a fierce typhoon, a mysterious gigantic egg washes ashore. The twin fairies of Infant Island plea for the egg's return to Mothra, its rightful owner, but it's too late -- greedy promoters have turned it into an amusement park attraction. Meanwhile Godzilla reawakens and tramples across Japan, heading straight for the big egg. Can Mothra save her offspring from Godzilla? Will Japan survive this epic monster battle? Directed by Ishiro Honda, Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) is widely considered the best of all Godzilla sequels, with an all-star Toho cast and exciting special effects.

The Crazies!

I was going to ignore the remake of George A. Romero's The Crazies for inappropriately using Gary Jules' "Mad World" in the trailer but the film is doing much better than initially expected so I have to acknowledge it. Hell, if it is as good as people say it is, I might even watch it! Still, though, just how far will we go with all of this remake bullshit? Should we go all out and cover all of Hitchcock's territory as well? Just look at my last few postings for American movies: bloody remakes is all they are. This week I'm going in a different direction by watching sequels, and I think I'll start with all the sequels to the original Godzilla (1954). That ought to wash away the bitter aftertaste left by the lack of balls in Hollywood when it comes to original scripts. In any case, enjoy the trailer if you can!

A Nightmare on Elm Street New Poster

As the release date of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake approaches, it's time for a new one-sheet poster just to remind us all of the great uncertainties in life. Will it be any good? Will it be crap beyond human comprehension? Will it be scary, gross, or stupidly funny? Who knows and at the end of the day, I'm sure it's not a waking thought for any sane person what with all the serious problems we all face on daily basis. That said, I find the poster rather bland: it's almost like it's saying "Heeeere's Freddy!" and, you know, if that's all that this little film amounts to, it shouldn't deserve any attention whatsoever. The art for the original was way more inventive. Peace!

Episode 21 - The Halloween Special

It's been a while since the last episode posting. This should be the 21st while in reality we just did the 33rd last Friday. I guess I'll have to step up in March posting at least two eps at once. Don't worry, though: everything will be archived here sooner or later :)

The thing with the 21st episode, however, is that we never recorded it, and there's a good reason for it: it was a five-hour Halloween bonanza with tons of music and little to no talking on air. As a replacement, here we're offering the Danse Macabre Halloween compilation of the best received tracks of the night, all filled to the brim with screams of horror you can actually dance to, he-he... Enjoy!

>>> Click here, oh dear visitor, to download this pesky little compilation

Mark Ryden!

You should know Mark Ryden's work even if you don't care at all about modern art. For one, he's the guy responsible for the cover of Michael Jackson's Dangerous, as well as for Stephen King's Desperation and The Regulators. In fact, I'll bet you've seen quite a lot of Ryden's designs over the years within various low-brow publications or re-printed as decorative art anywhere there's need for a bit of a "psychedelic" touch.

With this background, it's rather easy to dismiss Ryden as the populist "hired-hands" type, instead of the serious artist that he's been promoted as, but in this day and age does it matter at all what brand we stick on his ass? The important thing is that his art is, how shall we put it, fucked up all the way through. Intriguing and unsettling, baffling and enchanting, Ryden's world is that of Alice's Wonderland only tons more sinister and explicit in its allusions to politics, pop culture and pedophilia.

Ryden has several exhibitions behind his name including the upcoming The Gay 90's Olde Tyme Art Show, which will see the light of day this April in New York. The best of them, however, would have to be The Meat Show (1998) and Blood (2003), which depict the nameless heroines facing utter corruption with either wonder or pervasive melancholia. The pics presented here are a small selection from the Blood show; if you want to see more of this guy, head straight to his website and never look back.

Killer Kid Posters

The concept of the killer kid is immensely dangerous if mishandled. You can try to be dead serious and have something to say or you can be humorous and break taboos but you can never take it lightly. Of course, Kenny from South Park has died hundreds of times but it's a cartoon so it's easy to shrug away. Set the killings in a realistic setting and give the kid a face, and it's immediately much more difficult to film its death, especially if the kid is the villain of the piece and the hero can only survive by becoming its designated killer. Still, a bunch of films have spun entertaining yarns about children that do nasty things, and here are posters for some of them. If you decide to watch any of these, be careful not to lose sight of the fact that it's all just fiction.

Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy (1997)

Most horror films and stories are limited in one very important aspect: they require a particular setting in order to be viewed appropriately. Deviate from this setting and the horror is either not scary or simply not good at all. Of course, what the right setting is depends solely on the viewer and we all have different preferences. What might work for one does not work for the other.

From time to time, however, there comes a media piece that simply obliterates all viewing conventions; a work of art that is so powerful one cannot ignore it no matter the circumstances or personal tastes. One such work is Chris Cunningham's epic video for Aphex Twin's humorous hymn to brutality called "Come to Daddy". You can show this to anyone at any time and I bet no one would be able to look away. What do you say, shall we put 100 bucks on it?

Now, Cunningham would have done just fine if the video consisted of nothing else but jam being spread on toast for an early breakfast - the track is evil enough to get you through any boring image you can imagine. But Cunningham did much, much more than one should have expected from him. I won't go into details - the results are here for your viewing pleasure (and to remind you just how important art form music videos used to be back in the day) - but I'll just stress that this is by far the scariest shit aired on MTV, ever! In fact, "Come to Daddy" was so scary when it came out that Nicolas Cage's flick 8 mm used the video and track not once but twice to show you just how baaaaaad the villains really were...

Village of the Damned (1960)

The original Village of the Damned is easily the undisputed king of "evil children" films. Directed by Wolf Rilla and based on the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Windham, this classic British film formed a small but very influential cinematic subgenre around the concept of adults being allowed to kill children to protect the world. Of course, John Carpenter re-made it as an American product in 1995 - which is actually the version that most people know of - and while it's not bad at all, it definitely lacks the atmosphere of the original. Then again, how could anybody beat Martin Stephens' unforgettable performance as David Zellaby, the supernatural leader of the brat pack? This same kid ruled The Innocents only a year later and then disappeared from the film industry, staying forever the damned 12-year old child from hell in our minds. Well, here's to you Martin Stephens, wherever you are: without you we wouldn't have had The Omen and The Children of the Corn, so God bless!

My Bloody Valentine (1980)

Forget last year's moronic 3D remake: if there is one horror film you should watch this February 14h, that's the original My Bloody Valentine. Known as one of the best non-franchise slashers from the 1980s despite the severe censorship that cut 9 minutes of gore from the final version, MBV is one of those films that is much more influential than one would initially suspect. The plot goes something like this...

Twenty years ago in Valentine Bluffs, the supervisors at the town's mine were so eager to get to the annual Valentine dance that they didn't bother to check the levels of the methane gas. There was a massive explosion and five workers were trapped underneath the rubble. The only survivor was one Harry Warden, who never mentally recovered from the accident. Exactly a year later he returned and brutally killed the two who were responsible for the tragic mishap. He cut out their hearts, stuck them in candy boxes and sent them to the authorities. Fortunately, he was caught before he carried out any more killings and was put into Eastfield Asylum for the insane. Now in 1981 the happy go lucky residents of the usually tranquil town are preparing themselves for the first Valentine dance to be held since that fateful night two decades ago. Memories of Warden's murders have passed and a group of fun loving kids are thinking about nothing else but the anticipated party. However the night before the event the town mayor receives a blooded heart in a candy box with a poetic warning. It seems Harry has returned…

If it sounds like heaps of fun, that's because it is. That said, MBV is a 1980s slasher, which means that it is bogged down quite a bit by bad acting and predictable plot development... so don't say I didn't warn you :) If you still think you can stomach this, watch the newly re-released version; it should be available pretty much everywhere.

Upcoming Attractions

Things are shaking up for the batch of 2010. This week brought on the trailers for British flick Psych: 9 and the Italian In the Mouth of Ubaldo Terzani, and while neither promises to be anything special, they both seem fun in a somewhat campy sort of way. Well, enjoy!

Them (2006)

Them (or Ils if you prefer your titles in their original form) is one of those movies that take you for a thrilling ride and bash your head in suspense so many times you ignore how ludicrous they really are. Even now, after having checked out the claim for "actual events" only to conclude it's entirely arbitrary, I still cannot shake off the depicted realism in Moreau and Palud's offering, which upon analysis seems to work because it's particularly minimal. Of course, the best scenes in Them have already been used and re-used in previous films (and you should be able to spot the reference now and then) but they have more impact in a semi-realistic setting. All in all, not a great film but still highly recommended for a boring afternoon.