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Visual White Noise Theater: You’ll get “Red Eyes” (1994)

Ahhh video stores…anybody remember those? Well in “Red Eyes” there is one and it is called “Galaxy Video”, back when mom and pop video rental stores proliferated though out America, gimmicks were used to keep the customer coming in, i.e. special devices, giveaways, food, people dressed as characters from various films etc. “Red Eyes” plays on this and also uses it as a wraparound (excuse) to introduce sub par horror anthology segments, a big man in a trench coat with a mustache and mullet rents a “Vid-Visor” from Galaxy Video, a virtual reality type contraption that you have to put quarters into to make it work and show you bad short films, now first off, why the fuck would you want to put quarters into something you already paid to rent in the first place? I mean you paid already, this fucking “Vid-Visor” would have me walking away calling it out for what it was, a scam to siphon quarters off of you. As you can see “Red Eyes” from the beginning makes no sense. Mullet guy when he puts on the Vid-Visor, sees a screen that looks like the type of IBM computer graphics I used in junior high flashing “Insert Coin” he rummages through his pockets and finds some change. The grim reaper appears with flashing red eyes, I am sure they picked up this grim reaper at some cheap Halloween chain store, an early 1990’s “Spirit” store. He calls himself Charon, the same name of the boat man in Greek mythology and introduces the first horror short.

The shorts in this anthology aren’t very good, that being said they are at least entertaining and the movie isn’t boring, the first short has a grandmother telling her grandson while fishing on a dock about a World War Two vet that got antsy not being in a battle and goes into the lake their fishing at to see if the a downed Japanese POW plane is being operated as a base by the enemy, he goes into the lake and disappears, soon a really stereotyped Japanese soldier zombie emerges from the lake and attacks the grandson and grandma, the World War Two vet emerges and blows up the stereotyped Japanese soldier with a grenade and gives the kid his dog tags. After this short ends the mullet guy has no more change so he lures a priest to his door collecting money for the poor, and slams his hand so hard in the door it pops off spewing blood. Wow. So a dumb horror short viewed in a cheap visor makes you want to kill. OK buddy. The next short is about almost all the people in the world getting into their cars and driving, a father gets his wife and daughter in their car and they drive aimlessly, he tells them he heard about a family whose car stalled and the people just died. Soon they come across their deceased son, they stop and let him in the car and they keep driving all happy. Uh without a job, driving aimlessly around with no income, you aren’t gonna last too long, it looked like it was trying to take a shot at something Ray Bradbury like, but it misses the mark. The company who makes “Vid-Visor”, a Japanese company somehow finds out there is a malfunction in one of their units and sends an android killer to take out mullet guy.  Next mullet guy murders a pizza boy to steal his change and another sub par short pops up about a theater that swallows lonely people represented by a clown, it is done documentary style with interviews with police, journalists and the theater owners. The last and best short in “Red Eyes” is about a guy who has long hair, a Motorhead T shirt, drives a muscle car and is a jerk who drinks booze in a bag while harassing his girlfriend. The music in this short is a mix of Z grade hair and thrash metal which makes this short the best out of the whole rotten bunch. Long hair guy drunkenly hits a girl on roller skates while she is carrying her doll.  He puts the girl’s body in the woods and takes the doll home, the doll comes to stop motion life and makes him drink rat poison and cuts his throat. His girlfriend wanting to make up comes in in black see through lingerie and screams when she sees him dead.

Android assassin locates mullet guy at a bowling alley where all the participants are dead and finds mullet guy sitting down with a toy walking skull, the assassin goes to shoot him, sees a bowling pin and uses that to take his head off which goes down the alley, knocks all the pins down and reemerges in the ball machine thing. The end. SIGH… HA! HA! Yes, dumb, cheap, nonsensical, inept etc. “Red Eyes” will give you red eyes because you’ll be laughing so hard you’ll be crying.

 

To get “Red Eyes” (the good kind) you can go here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/wRFXSkWKYiqx/

VHS and physical copies…good luck finding that needle in the haystack. HA!

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Visual White Noise Theater: “The Laughing Dead” (1998) nothing to laugh at.

Not to be confused with equally entertaining “Laughing Dead” (1989) this movie isn’t funny, in fact, its cynical and depressing. Then you ask why the hell are you reviewing this on your blog? Well, because its a cynical, depressing AND interesting. Speaking of “confused” this movie gets confusing in some parts. A kid runs away from some people after his mother is burned at the stake, he dives in a river and seemingly as an adult washes up on the banks of a city that looks suspiciously like L.A., a future LA where milkmen load the numerous dead and addicted into the milk trucks, people melt, people rampantly shoot up heroin, half hog half wolf things chase people, acid rain falls in intervals, all the TV shows look like something you’d see on public access TV in a nightmare alternate reality and a limo chases people down running them over.

Sometimes “The Laughing Dead” tries too hard to be depressing and ruling over this movies tries too hard to be depressing and ruling over this mess is a vampire elite who feeds on the poverty stricken populace. The man who is washed up befriends two female junkies and forgets where or when he came from, he runs into a black revolutionary who randomly blows people away and runs them over saying “Their gonna die anyways”. It turns out the man can travel on the river of time and his brother the vampire is the ruler of the city and he’s been looking for his brother for years this the Gen X cynical outlook pushed to the brink.

That being said “The Laughing Dead” makes for an interesting watch, again at an hour and half this movie didn’t have me looking down at my watch, the film looks scummy, and the surroundings  look filthy, like this movie needs to take a long hot shower and be scrubbed with a Brillo pad, of course most of this is due to the cheap film stock this movie was shot on but besides that if they wanted to create a post apocalyptic hell hole they did a hell of job and is a must see for post apocalyptic film fanatics. The story about a time traveling vampire gets confusing and parts don’t make sense but just let your brain soak in the insanity of this movie. “The Laughing Dead” is a movie I don’t see or hear about too much and for good reason, I found this VHS at a yard sale, the guy wanted a buck for it, that is too much for this movie but I don’t think I wasted money, I’ll make sure you don’t either because really you can’t find this movie anywhere.

So where to go to not laugh at the “Laughing Dead”, I know! Go here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/HB2iikCxQS8h/

Good luck finding a physical copy.

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Visual White Noise Theater: Ever feel like your “Disembodied” (1998)?

This movie is what happens when a person watches too many David Lynch, John Waters and 1950’s sci fi horror movies and mixes them up in their head. This movie’s logic is not of this world but that isn’t a bad thing. A goth looking girl, Connie Sproutz, checks into a decrepit motel and the night clerk, played by James Diederichsen who also does the special effects in “Disembodied” looks like death warmed over and he also gives out creeper vibes, the only room he has left is in the basement near the boiler, the look of this boiler would give David Lynch a hard on. Her next door neighbor is a buxom prostitute named Trixie, who turns tricks, there is also a cleaning lady who smokes giant cigars and complains about cleaning the shit hole of a hotel.

Connie keeps her brain in a jar and feeds it liquids, she also has a machine that keeps her dreams of outer space and alien landscapes from becoming a reality, all the while a man who looks like Colonel Sanders, Dr. Sigmund Sylvanus pursues her on behalf of a corporation. Connie used to work for the corporation and was taken over by a parasite alien while doing research and is on the run. Connie has a huge pimple that spews liquid that turns people into slime which she eats and then she gives birth to breathing vagina like things she stores in a dirty bathtub.

Trixie befriends Connie and the clerk tries to pick up both girls by asking them to watch old educational film reels and the girls always turn him down which makes him very frustrated. These characters are pretty much the main ones, except for two victims of Connie and a John Trixie slaps, it exists in its own strange world, there is stop motion and rocks that Connie collects that change into different items like balls, dolls etc. There is flowers that spew liquid in stop motion. I wasn’t bored one minute and the fact that this movie is only one hour and seventeen minutes makes it ever better. The otherworldly quality of this film and the world it creates will keep you interested.

So in closing to get “Disembodied” physically, the director, William Kersten, has done 2K remaster on blu ray here: https://www.amazon.com/Disembodied-Blu-ray-Anastasia-Woolverton/dp/B078FHJJZC

To get “Disembodied” now get torn apart here: https://tubitv.com/movies/559781/disembodied?start=true

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Visual White Noise on Paper: “Mome” is the word.

To be completely honest I bought these issues of “Mome” because Al Columbia had work in them, and for no other reason, that being said the comics and art in the rest of these issues is pretty damn good. “Mome” was edited by Gary Groth and featured cartoonists that were new to the game, with a few old school hands on deck. “Mome’s” content is varied but the same themes seem to repeat themselves in each issue, mainly dealing in philosophy, dreams, imagination and some autobiographical stuff thrown in. Gary interviews a different artist in each issue. I have five of them, all featuring some of Al Columbia’s work but I will go through them one by one and give some highlights not a run down of every story in each issue.

“Mome” issue 7, Spring 2007 is the first issue featuring the illusive Al Columbia’s work, its a series a of pieces titled “Chopped Up People” what you get is Al’s twisted sense of humor bleeding off the pages. You get Pluto, Mickey Mouse’s dog, chopped to hell smiling his head off, a portion of a comic strip featuring Al’s recurring characters Pim and Francine, a blue smiling man cut into pieces etc. you get the drift, in Al’s nightmare Fleischertoon world anything is possible even smiling cartoon corpses. Eleanor Davis’ “Seven Sacks” is another highlight, a ferryman takes seven different weird creatures across the river  with each getting bigger and bigger, each with a sack going to a gathering, at the end the ferryman sees a foreboding column of smoke in the distance and pushes off hurriedly to the other side. Sophie Crumb (daughter of (in)famous underground comix couple Robert and Aline Crumb) does “Lucid Nightmare Pt. 2” about a trio of kids that do “Z-9” which transports a person to the “Land of Sweet Dreams” but also has them waking up and not knowing where the hell they are with a really bad hang over, and thinking they might be kidnapped by predators. “Nothing Eve Part 3” about a group of guys in a bar who are deciding on what they want to do before the end of the world by Kurt Wolfgang. In “Al Loose Ends Part 2” Lewis Trondheim does the autobio thing which I normally hate but in this one he tries to find out from his fellow cartoonists (mostly French and Dutch) if the cartooning profession causes the cartoonist to age badly or cause more depression than other professions. “Hollow Leg” is a dream bout a girl having a hollow leg that talks to her by Anders Nilsen. And another dream (or nightmare) comic comes our way via David Heatley at a house party where September 11th, 2001 gets replayed in a absurd way.

“Mome” issue 8, summer 2007 has Al Columbia’s “Fucking Felix” and with this one we’re back in Columbia’s “Fleischertoon from hell” world. It is literally that, Felix the cat getting fucked in nine, single black and white pages, Felix awaits his lover, a bald man in a suit who gets some “pussy” and “makes” in Felix’s mouth, Felix spits out tadpoles. Again Al’s twisted, sick humor oozes through. Eleanor  Davis has a bard meet and enchant a woman of the wild in “Stick and String”, or is she the one doing the enchanting? Sophie Crumb does “Lucid Nightmare Part 3” where the kids wake up from the “Z-9” trip to be chased by a maniac and they have no idea where they are at. Tom Kaczynski has a character named “Cayce” who has a dream, he wakes up in the future in 10,000 years, and he watches a TV show with Karl Marx leading a zombie revolution on Mars. In “Young Americans” Emile Bravo does a comic strip taking place in the 1950’s and the strip proceeds innocently like a comic strip from that period with a intellectual father trying to relate to his jock/sports addict son but then the strips repeats the same panels and makes the dialogue more profane which gives you pause for thought. “Hide and Watch” by Joe Kimball is a surrealist comic where the sun gets attacked by light bulbs and various other, unexplained things happen. And Trondheim does “At Loose Ends Part 3” in which he further explores if cartoonists age worse than any other profession.

In “Mome” Fall 2007, Al Columbia actually follows through on a Pim and Francine strip! Normally, Pim and Francine are only featured in partial strips, one page art or scraps. In this one Pim and Francine get eaten by a bald headed butcher who bakes them into his pies. “Shhh!” Tim Hensley goes 1960’s art style with a tale of a guy trying to woo a girl with a band contract in a library. Jim Woodring does his weird, anamorphic squirrel character, Frank, in his weird, abstract, Buddhist/Hindu world in “The Lute String Pt. 1”. Joe Kimball tells the tale of vampire love in “The Lifer”. Then there is pages of Mike Scheer’s ballpoint pen drawings that are jaw dropping with an intro by Eric Reynolds. Tom Kaczynski has a new condo slowly drive people insane in the surrounding community in “976 Sq Ft.” Sophie Crumb does “Lucid Nightmare pt. 4” which is the final part were the addicts escape from their captors to join up with a bunch of hippies.

“Mome” issue 11, Summer 2008, Al Columbia goes off the “1930’s cartoon from hell” thing and paints a scene of a sad, lonely, empty and deteriorating house, the panels show and emote the loneliness of the house, near the end you see a older woman with a rope around her neck but the question is was it a suicide or foul play? In the comic “5:45 AM”. A woman sees every man looking pig like but when she comes across a man she likes she sees him looking like a male version of herself, but his penis has the head of the piggish man in “Einmall Ist Keinmal” by Killoffer. Eleanor Davis does “Its Dot and Louisa in the 10.000 Rescues” each panel features the aforementioned characters in different weird rescue situations. “In Million Year Boom” a man goes to help develop public relations for a  brand new “green community” that is a lot more than it seems and more horrific.

In “Mome” Vol. 12 2008,Al Columbia does the single art pages with “Invasion”, all the pages show is what looks like an empty, suburban street with empty houses and front lawns except for the blue cats, the title “Invasion” makes me think these cats aren’t of this world and maybe why no people are about. This is why Al is one of my favorite artists, some pieces leave more questions than answers. Sophie Crumb does portraits of an old west female outlaw named “Agnes Freeman”. Oliver Schrawuwen does a pretty fucking funny comic called “Hair Types” where a buffoon in an art class, when seeing an illustration of different types of hair made by a fellow bearded art student sees that his hairstyle is listed as “docile hair”, the bearded student says that he has “crazy hair” he is roasted by all the students with hilarious results. “Train” by Dash Shaw has a woman, who is a children’s therapist, go on jog after a therapy session and witnesses a train wreck where the survivors stampede towards her in fear and she doesn’t know what to do. Jon Vermilyea does a violent rip on children’s breakfast food ads in the “The Breakfast Crew”. David B. tells a tale of a man whose skin is made into a drum and whose spirit leads his men into battle through the beating of the drum, but love gets in the way in “The Drum Who Fell in Love”. Sophie Crumb does a “Tijuana Bible” take, old school style, in “Loopy Liza in “Tsk Tsk”.

So while I bought the issues for Columbia’s work the rest of these issues surprised me and were just as interesting and good. Maybe down the line I might try to buy the whole run of “Mome”. I didn’t list the issues with Al Columbia covers because I am more interested in his comic strips and art, less so about his covers. The interviews are pretty interesting in these issues, and “Mome” sure is the word, get it out and get into it.

To get into it you can read every “Mome” in digital form right here: https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Mome

To get physical copies which I recommend there is still cheap copies on Abesbooks, Amazon etc. out there so snap them up while you still can.

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White Noise Eardrum Buster: The wild noise land of “Tasmania 1”, lets go down there…

A lot of compilations are hit and miss, sometimes there is a lot more misses than hits and those are the ones I won’t review on this blog. The ones I do review are the ones that have more hits than misses or in “Tasmania 1″s case, almost every track hits like a mack truck.

 

 

 

I found this on a now defunct blog and it was way up my alley, according to discogs it originally came housed in a box with two tapes with an A5 booklet with art for each artist. This was put out by Overuse records, which was founded by Tasmanian based Matthew Nicholls in 2015 and most if not all the acts on the comp are his own bands. That being said, each band and act has its own personal stamp and this comp fucking kills. So without further, ado start digging to the land down under.

The first track is an synth ambient piece with rumbling lows, its soft and calm but bludgeons you at the same time, it is by the act Dysassociation called “Endless Low”. Most people going into this compilation will think this is a noise comp, nope. The first track puts you at ease, wailing and sighing synths give way to…Snarling feedback laden blackened punk by Fixation with two tracks of mean hardcore with “Crippled Over” and “Falling Down”. Both tracks rip and go for the throat, these two tracks hate your fucking guts.

Next up you get blackened noise from the act Blackline, two tracks laden with black metal tinged filth, “Famine” and “Disease” and that is what it will sound like in your ears. Then Carved Cross comes in with their raw, lo fi rumbling black metal, screeching in agony with “Forced Self Deprivation”.

Another blowout ambient piece with crackling and searing textures comes to singe your ears courtesy of Colour Sensory with the track “Waves of Diffraction”.

Now time to get down, and I mean really really down, with the audio heroin of Gaunt, with the tracks “Music Isn’t Fun” and “Something Numb”, this is pretty much down in the dumps, volume blown out darkwave with vocals that are moaning and sound like they were recorded in a coffin. You want to get depressed listening to these two tracks complete with wailing synths. Then you get Leather Temple with “Dark Street Corner”, their piece dark ambient laced with low rumbles and screeching feedback, not for the faint of heart. Like a shot of adrenaline, Parvo comes in with the track “Teenage Kicks” and it will kick you right in the face, straight up no frills, lo fi punk, is what Parvo is about and there is nothing wrong with that!

Next up is the minimalist, lo fi black metal band, Night Falls Haunting with the tracks “Prelude” and “Fear Haunts Me”, “Prelude” is a slow, plodding, echoing and scratchy track that sets the mood for whats ahead, which is “Fear Haunts Me” which is sluggish and like walking through a cold dark forest in winter complete with screechy vocals. Night Falls Haunting has no pretense it is just straight ahead, depressing, old school style black metal.

The last two tracks on “Tasmania 1” are the noise act Claudia with “Faggot’s Spit” which has a crackling sound to it and what sounds like samples lifted from a she male porn flick, sometimes the sample sounds like the participants are wailing in pain, fun fun fun.  Last, but definitely not least, is Fetish Ritual with “M.B.” power electronics done old school like Whitehouse. Spoken word, snarling in fury at child molesters with swirling screeches and static in the background, “Tasmania 1” nails the coffin shut and now you’ll suffocate.

So in closing if you can find this version of the compilation snap it up quickly, to my knowledge there was another version minus the A5 booklet and box set. I have volume 2 and will review that in the future along with some other Overuse releases. In my opinion the art in the booklet helps supplement the music, this is a must have for fans of extreme and on the fringes music.

No copies of the boxed edition of “Tasmania 1” but there is a copy of the no frills release on discogs whoever is interested might want to snap this up: https://www.discogs.com/release/16273038-Various-Tasmania-I

Here is Overuse’s defunct blog, there seems to be no new entries since last year but it still gives some info on their releases: https://overuse.blogspot.com/

If you throw up your hands in defeat and want to make your own depressive noise go here and listen to it in it’s entirety: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Tr5M2tqGgrAt/

Here is a volume 2 you can listen to it and check out my run down of it here: https://www.noisepuncher.net/2022/02/20/audio-white-noise-going-to-go-tasmania-2-iac-on-your-ass/

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Visual White Noise Theater: Lets have a nice visit with “Frank and Zed” 2021

The last puppet movie I saw that was made for adults was Peter Jackson’s “Meet the Feebles”, it was before Jackson slathered CGI shit all over the screen with “Bored of the Dings”. “Meet the Feebles” featured puppets fucking, getting AIDs, having eating disorders and being addicted to drugs, you know, kid’s stuff. Now I know in the interim that there was one other adult puppet movie that came out which I never saw called “Happy Time Murders” but Melissa McCarthy’s presence makes me not want to see it. However, while rolling through the web site “366 Weird Movies” I came across a review for a movie called “Frank and Zed” which featured all puppets, and watching the trailer made me cum in my pants. I crossed my fingers hoping there was somewhere I could watch it. No such luck, until I visited the filmmaker’s facebook page and web site which was called “Puppetcore” to see if there was anyway I could see it. “Frank and Zed” was going to be streamed through Halloween and I plopped down my money down and what I got was a puppet movie unlike I’d ever seen, a fantasy, horror and comedy, three of my favorite genres mashed together, visually eye popping, gut busting funny, I had a great time watching “Frank and Zed”, the puppets all had personalities of their own right down to the background puppets, “Frank and Zed” is like a mutant hybrid of “Evil Dead 2”, “Meet the Feebles” and “Young Frankenstein”.

 

I don’t want to give too much away, but the movie tells the tale of Frank who was made from various body parts and Zed who is a zombie whose soul is trapped in its body by the God of Death, whom Frank and Zed were made to serve. The God of Death seeks to rule over a small village but he is slaughtered by the villagers and he puts a curse on the village saying they will all die in a “Orgy of Blood”. A priest and a lord plot to overthrow the king and make the curse not happen by tricking the villagers into killing Frank and Zed whom they see as maintaining the curse and all hell breaks loose. Bones break, blood splatters, brains get eaten etc. I sure hope sooner or later this gets released in physical format, the only draw back to watching it online streaming was that it had a watermark right in the middle of the screen, which was annoying, but I understand why they put it there, to keep theft from happening. “Frank and Zed” took an impressive seven years to make by Portland, OR based filmmaker Jesse Blanchard and crew, the miniatures were shot on the RED camera which was Stanley Kubrick’s favorite lens. Jesse and his crew made all the sets and puppets in his garage and used mainly practical effects, only using CGI for some thunder and electricity, this movie was strictly old school. He helped fund “Frank and Zed” in part through Kickstarter. This movie is a hoot and I can’t wait to watch it again, another hidden newer movie that is actually good. Here is praying “Frank and Zed” comes out in Blu Ray/DVD sooner rather than later. 

So where do you get your brains eaten by “Frank and Zed”? You don’t yet but you can get a little taste with the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDaRv1IkUsg&t=11s

Go to the castle here: https://www.puppetcore.com/

Their fuckfacebook page (did I just type that? Sorry… NOT!): https://www.facebook.com/Puppetcore/

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Lets Reference: Your “Bleeding Skull”! Volumes One and Two.

The web site “Bleeding Skull” (my web site review here: https://www.noisepuncher.net/2021/05/13/web-site-spotlight-bleeding-skull/) dives deep, deep, deep in the scummy abyss like recesses of the pop culture of yesteryear and the present, bringing up the celluloid filth that most everybody else would like to see gone from the face of the earth. But I am glad I am not everybody else, there is times “Bleeding Skull” actually comes out of the recesses with a fistful of gold and diamonds. “Bleeding Skull” is the only site to have guts enough to try to watch every SOV (shot on video) and mid fi film in existence, I’ve done a review on their web site, now it is time to review the reference books they put out and, boy oh boy, did I find a lot of good movies I otherwise wouldn’t have found without the books and their web site.

The first book, “Bleeding Skull! A 1980’s Trash-Horror Odyssey”, is the first volume, published by the great Headpress Publishing, all films are listed in alphabetical order, with black and white photos and a handy index, this book dares to go into the steaming pile that is SOV and mid fi movies of the 1980’s. In the 1980’s video rental stores (RIP) were popping up all over the country, people forget that movies even back then on VHS weren’t cheap to buy, especially in the early days. So mostly local and regional film makers shot no budget “epics” on their camcorders or Super 8 cameras, using Halloween store make up and cheap prosthetics, primitive computer graphics, using friends, relatives, significant others as actors etc. slapping some interesting cover art on the box and selling them from video store to video store. I actually remember as a kid watching some of these movies when me, my brother and cousin would rent the movie based on the box art, only to take it home and be disappointed. As kids we bought the cover art hook line and sinker, it wasn’t until I was older that I got into SOV, as a kid I was too used to seeing movies with some of a budget, movies like “Dark Crystal”, “Return of the Jedi”, “ET”, “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” and the like, not something me and my friends made with my dad’s camcorder. The very first movie that brought back the SOV beast for me was “Black Devil Doll From Hell” directed by Chester Turner, which I stumbled across in “The Psychotronic Video Guide” (you can see my weird book report on aforementioned book right here: https://www.noisepuncher.net/2021/03/25/wtf-is-the-psychotronic-video-guide/) reference book, reading the description made me run out and get it off of ioffer. When I put the movie on my jaw hit the floor, it was like watching some pervert’s home made doll fetish video and then the SOV beast came roaring out from the back of my childhood mind and bit me good. That led me to searching out and finding “Bleeding Skull”. This book “Bleeding Skull! A 1980’s Trash-Horror Odyssey” turned me on to so many other movies from that period of time which I am eternally grateful . In addition to “Black Devil Doll From Hell” you’ll get reviews on movies with titles like “Attack of the Killer Refrigerator”, “Bloody Video Horror That Made Me Puke on My Aunt Gertrude”, “Cannibal Hookers”, “Killer Workout” and the like, you’ll get capsule reviews from Joseph Ziemba who I know personally is a cool dude and has responded to every email and message I have sent him and founder of “Bleeding Skull” and Daniel Budnik whose dry wit and humor had me belly laughing. The two guys don’t take the subject matter too seriously and who would? This book is free wheeling fun like the 1980’s as a decade were, I was literally writing down what movies I had to search out after reading this book, sometimes I couldn’t find the movies they were talking about because they were so rare. Speaking of rare, this book is out of print at Headpress and everywhere else, copies are gonna cost you an arm and leg. Luckily I was a early “Bleeding Skull” fan and bought the book when it was in print. This book covers movies from the 1980’s to the early 1990’s because to be honest the early 1990’s were still the 1980’s style wise.

This is when we dive face first into the 1990’s and face plant…HARD. “Bleeding Skull! A 1990’s Trash-Horror Odyssey” delves deep into the SOV and mid fi cesspit that was the 1990’s. Video rental stores were still around but they were more wise to the “box art masking a home made movie” so different companies sold them direct through catalogs, magazine ads and the newly burgeoning internet. Also, this was when the PC shit beast started to rear its butt ugly head and being “ironic” was the creed of the day. This book was put out this year and I’ve literally been waiting for it for about two years thinking it would never come out. Fantagraphics, whom people who read my site know I love, was taking forever to put it out. Well it finally came out, the dry wit of Daniel Budnik was gone and replaced with Annie Choi, and Zack Carlson with Joe still on board. This time the book has higher production values, it has color photos and art, slick pages, its again in alphabetical order with an index. And again this one put me on to movies I had never heard of movies like “Attack of the Serial Killers from Outer Space”, “Blood Slaves of the Vampire Wolf”, “Frankenstein’s Planet of Monsters!”, “I Was a Teenage Serial Killer” etc. And the problem is Annie, Zack and, to a lesser extent, Joe, took the 1990’s moniker too seriously, don’t get me wrong, the writers replacing Dan are damn funny in their own way, when their not trying to preach or virtue signal. Come on guys, this a fucking book on no budget movies not your college term paper, in fact, when I read some of the reviews peppered with PC millennial/zoomer horse shit, I’d roll my eyes. The prior book had little to no meditating on politics of any kind, in fact in Annie’s review for “I Was a Teenage Serial Killer” she abandons humor altogether and goes on a huge diatribe about how women are still oppressed, no humor at all, all I had to say is “SHUT THE FUCK UP”. I am here to find out about movies I’d never heard, not have some ex college ass hat lecture me on how evil I am, she is not the only one, Joe also does his share of preaching which he didn’t do in the previous book, like under the movie review for “Limbo” you get this “I am a white dude. Because of this, there’s no way for me to understand the challenges women and people of color face on a daily basis (me: semi true). I recognize that my life has been easier (me: bullshit you don’t know that, this isn’t Jim Crow America and not every woman and black person has the same experience, their individuals not a collective faceless mass, like white people, some women and black people have had either easier or tougher experiences depending on their circumstances.) This is why its important for me-and every other white man on the planet-to celebrate the accomplishments of people who are not white whenever possible (me: if their work interests me or their creative that is my criteria not because of skin color or gender, that is what you virtue signals call “Racist”)”. Then he goes on to tell a story of how a woman, Tina Krause, completed and submitted her movie “Limbo” to different film festivals under her own name and got rejection after rejection, then she did it under the name Stephen and was accepted once she was called to address the crowd she went on stage and berated the festival and film goers for “Sexism” and Joe slowly clapped, so Joe did it even enter your mind that maybe since “Limbo” is an SOV movie that most festivals wouldn’t take it? Is it quite possible that they didn’t like the movie and wouldn’t accept it? Too many people are quick to jump on the “victim” band wagon, maybe Tina’s experience was an actual one but this is the kind of crap that hurt the book for me. Annie, Zack and Joe do a good job, but they would’ve done a great job if they hadn’t thrown in the virtue signaling horse shit that is prevalent all over most indie/cult film sites, it isn’t original and its boring. That being said this volume is still good and you can easily ignore the political preaching junk, they don’t do it too much but when they do its annoying and makes them seem like virtue beggars. Guys stick to humor and reviewing movies, save the mealy mouthed bull shit for the talking heads and loser academics in their ivory towers. Mark Polonia who made a shit load of SOV movies and is a SOV legend does the intro for the book. These days digital cameras, cheap computer graphic and editing programs, even phones etc. have made it easier than ever to make movies, the SOV legacy lives on and all one needs to do is go to Amazon Prime Video or Tubi to see the independent spirit to make low to no budget movies is still alive, even though most video stores have gone the way of the dinosaurs. SOV makers now use streaming services, sell DVD and Blu Rays of their own releases through their own web sites and use video hosting sites to show their work, as long as there is a person with a passion and a camera out there of some sort that spirit will never die and “Bleeding Skull” is still the king of digging up these treasures, may they never waver in their pursuit of beautiful trash.

Well good luck finding “Bleeding Skull! A 1980’s Trash-Horror Odyssey” dig deep here digitally or on ebay to try to find a physical copy: https://www.amazon.com/Bleeding-Skull-1980s-Trash-Horror-Odyssey/dp/1900486881

“Bleeding Skull! A 1990’s Trash-Horor Odyssey” just got released but you better snap up a copy while you can because Fantagraphics, like Headpress seems to do only one print run of something get it here folks (not available on Fantagraphics better get it now!): https://www.amazon.com/Bleeding-Skull-1990s-Trash-Horror-Odyssey/dp/1683961862

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Visual White Noise Theater: Let me taste “The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears” (2013)

French husband and wife team Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet seem to like the giallo genre because the next movie they did after “Amer” (check out my review here: https://www.noisepuncher.net/2021/10/30/revel-in-amer-2009/) a giallo was “The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears”, a giallo. Of course they also did the strange modern Western/Poliziotteschi movie “Let the Corpses Tan”(come on over and get your corpse tanned here: https://www.noisepuncher.net/2021/02/12/go-ahead-let-the-corpses-tan-2017/).

Dan (played by Klaus Tange) returns home from a business trip to find that his wife Edwige (played by Ursula Bedena) is missing without any evidence of her leaving or a break in, he starts looking for her in different rooms of the building, the first lady is behind a veil and tells the story of how her own husband went missing after he was hearing voices and sounds behind the wall where he gets stabbed. Soon Dan turns to the police, at first the inspector (played by Jean-Michel Vovk) is dismissive and of no help at all, Dan has a dream of going to the roof top and encountering a nude woman who jumps. The inspector himself has a missing wife and as the movie goes on it does play with giallo genre tropes but goes into Lynchesque, abstract, noir territory with shifting perspectives of reality.

“The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears” uses a lot of symbolism and metaphors, sometimes you can’t tell if what Dan is seeing is real or what he perceives to be real, and without giving too much away there is another world within the walls of the building and Dan becomes a voyeur spying on the weird going ons of his neighbors. While to some extent, “The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears” is less linear then its predecessor “Amer”, this one, in my opinion, is more rich and mysterious. Its true you get the masked killer with razor and brightly lit color scheme of Argento and Bava, you get a lot more of a stylized and noir like atmosphere. I liked “The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears” more and it is one I want to revisit. The directors claim you need to watch it more than once to get more of the details and more of the stories. This movie will try a lot of people’s patience, even the ones who are into the weird and absurd, that is a warning. This is a love or hate it proposition, if the above description of the movie interests you by all means dive in, if it doesn’t well if you dive in your diving into an empty pool and you will get hurt.

So where do you swim in “The Colour of Your Body’s Tears”? Well you can go here but you’ll have to get a Shudder subscription from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.0ca9f78e-0f49-68fd-350a-1e79e209a76f/ref=dv_auth_ret?autoplay=1&

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Visual White Noise Theater: Revel in “Amer” (2009)

Heading into Halloween it has been a tradition of mine to watch nothing but horror movies for the month of October, that includes every sub genre of horror, so keeping that in mind I decided to review a newer movie that needs more attention by “newer” I mean 2009. And that movie would be the giallo film “Amer” by French husband wife team Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani who did the equally retro western/heist/polzieschi film “Let the Corpses Tan” (My review is here: https://www.noisepuncher.net/2021/02/12/go-ahead-let-the-corpses-tan-2017/).

The film is in three parts, the first part is about the main character, Ana, as a child played by Cassandra Forêt  . Now the first part is the strangest part of all, the girl lives with her parents who seem on edge, her grandma who seems to be mentally unstable and dress in black and her dead grandfather who they have laid out on a bed. This first part seems to meld both reality and the girl’s over imagined perception of it. Little girl Ana, seems frightened by all the adults in her life, including her dead grandfather. Now this part is pure Bava/Argento worship with strange colors and leather clad masked killer with a razor who pursues her after she snatches some jewelry from the dead hands of her grandfather. When she sees her father and mother having sex after being scared at her black funeral clad grandmother spying on her, she gets traumatized and her psyche seems to literally shatter.

The second part of “Amer” goes into Ana’s teenage years (played by Charlotte Eugène Guibeaud), where she has a sexual awakening which she is both turned on by and repulsed by. This is illustrated when her and her mother walk to the butcher shop, the butcher shop owner’s son tries to kiss her and she turns away. She walks toward what looks like a biker gang whose lustful gaze turns to her, there is barely any dialogue in this scene, just the sound of the rustling of her mini skirt and the crinkling of their leather. She seems to be turned on by the fact that these guys could jump her at any minute on the one hand but on the other she has complete power over them. Her mother finds her and slaps her for the flirting.

The third part sees Ana (played by Marie Bos) as a grown up is on a train closely surrounded by men and she seems to be aroused by it. She gets picked up in a taxi cab by a man (played by Harry Cleven) dressed in leather, the man is gazing at her in the mirror the whole time and she is aware of it. At times she begs him to open the window because its hot in the car and he pretends to not listen a couple times as if he trying to show her he is in charge. He ends up dropping her off at her old house which is decrepit and rundown, she goes inspecting and she keeps seeing a dark figure out of the corner of her eyes. At one point when she goes to take a bath, a man in leather tries to drown her but she pulls the plug. As she gets out the man who drove the taxi cab seems to be stalking the house, I am not gonna give away anymore but the end is a mind fuck. The “giallo” genre has certain tropes, the masked killer with the razor, a psychic/occult occurrence, crimson red blood and strange bright colors, this movie plays with all those tropes and makes them their own. This movie is stylized but it holds your attention and keeps you guessing. Another “modern” movie done right. They’d do another giallo film “The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears”(Drink the tears here): https://www.noisepuncher.net/2021/10/30/let-me-taste-the-strange-colour-of-your-bodys-tears-2013/.

So where to catch “Amer”? Apple TV has got it: https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/amer/umc.cmc.1sn38q57xhjw6zyvijqpt06cn?action=play

But if you look in the pirate’s stolen booty you can find it too, just be careful to use a VPN so you don’t walk the plank.

Your welcome.

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White Noise on Paper: Lets go to the “Biologic Show” by Al Columbia

Al is one twisted motherfucker and from one twisted motherfucker to another he made me a fan. The “Biologic Show” is when he started to develop his style that he is famous for, the “Fleischertoons from Hell” art style, in “Biologic Show”, the art style is more drippy, sharp and edgy goth, not that there is anything wrong with that, his demented and twisted sense of humor is intact. The “Biologic Show” issues 0 and 1 are very rare and hard to find, they were collected with other odds and ends and put in a book by Hollow Press with a dembossed cover in Italy and now that is sold out. That is the book I read and I am reviewing

The first issue of “Biologic Show” was published by Fantagraphics in 1994, this was issue 0, why Al just didn’t call it issue 1 I can’t figure out. “Biologic Show” issue 0 features “No Tomorrow If I Must Return” featuring his recurring clown character, Seymour Sushine, this time embedded in what looks like the mouth of his hinged mouth character, Alfred the Great, featured in “Zero Zero”(get zeroed zeroed out here: https://www.noisepuncher.net/2021/09/30/five-four-three-two-one-zero-zero-comix/), the next one up is self titled and its about a man who finds his girlfriend murdered so he commits suicide to find her in the afterlife, the problem is this afterlife is Hell and his girlfriend will have nothing to do with him, “Grinding Larry” is about Larry who gets in a car wreck and loses his brain and now he has to find it, “Over” is a nasty poem set to some horrific comic strip art, “Extinction” features a couple’s escalating fight on a park bench and a man nearby who fights his mutant dog, nothing goes right as you imagine, “Lowborn Peacock” has another one of Al’s weird poems being performed in Hell, “Lil” Saint Anthony” is a tale of a man in a semi catatonic state eating his own shit on the ground and a boy wanting to buy bullets for his gun to put the man out of his misery, “Bruja” is another nonsensical strip and poem, recurring characters Pim and Francine make their first appearance in “Tar Frogs” they look different, more goth like as opposed to the 1930′ Fleischer Brother’s style characters they’d become, Pim eats some tar shaped like frogs off of their pervert neighbor Mr. Crowley’s front porch and becomes horny, he rapes Francine who might be his sister while Mr. Crowley (I have Ozzy’s voice echoing in my head) leers and watches behind a curtain, Pim impregnates Francine and she gives birth very fast to a beaked monstrosity, Pim tries to kill it but realizes he’s been really stabbing his sister.

“Biologic Show” issue 1 is really issue 2 called “Peloria Part One” and features Pim and Francine only in their nightmare world being chased by Siamese twin girls who are trying to kill them, Francine runs away and Pim gets cornered, Francine grabs a ride in a car with a creepy old man who attempts to hit on her and she wants to be let off at the fountain in town where she meets another recurring character of Al’s, Knishkebibble the Monkey Boy and his vacant eyed goth girlfriend and asks Monkey Boy if he’s seen Pim, Monkey Boy says “no” while feeling up his girlfriend and Francine gets back in the car with the creepy guy, Pim in a daze emerges and asks Monkey Boy if he has seen Francine, he lies and says he hasn’t, Pim passes out and Monkey Boy tries to revive him, soon Francine in the car with the weird guy thinks she sees Monkey Boy and Pim sitting at the fountain, she decides not to get out of the car and drives away with the stranger. The story is supposed to continue in the next issue.

Al claimed he was gonna do “Biologic Show” issue 2 which was actually gonna be 3, the story “I Was Killing When Killing Wasn’t Cool”, was supposed to be appear in that issue but Al realized his style of drawing had changed and he’d changed it into the “Fleischer Brothers from Hell” style he is known for and didn’t think it would fit “Biologic Show”, the story ended up being put in “Zero Zero” which I reviewed (link above). Al got the title for his comic from William S. Burrough’s book “Exterminator”. After Al didn’t want to do “Biologic Show” anymore (Surprise! Surprise!) Fantagraphics said they were gonna expand “Peloria” into a graphic novel, but of course a lot of Al’s plans, it didn’t happen.

This book also features Seymour Sunshine “Debris”, bits and pieces of his recurring character in “Slow Machine”, “Casigian”, “The Hellbound Bellydancer”, and “Ersatz (A family name)” featuring two characters that look suspiciously like Pim and Francine, the book republishes the mini comic “23  Skidoo” the story “Orifi to Boreal” about a man who goes to a wishing well wishing for pussy and throws his coin down the well he gets more than he bargains for, in the next untitled story a man gets in a car crash and skids yards and features a poem about the man internally bleeding to death and the last piece is “Johnny 23” a piece published in the comix mag “Taboo” in 1992, a guy tries to suppress his murdering impulses by imagining he is a crooner while having his ex girlfriend tied up in his bathroom.

So there you have it, “Biologic Show” is nihilistic, bloody, violent and to be honest a bit juvenile, the thing is meant to convey pure black mortician humor. You can see the progress of Al’s style, from the drippy, jagged edged style to a more 1930’s cartoon from hell style. While the art style has changed, the humor and messed story lines have not. “Biologic Show” is not for the feint of heart, I do like his later art style better, it is more original and his own. A lot of people back in the day were doing the whole “goth jagged edges with drips” thing. I do wish Al was more prolific, people say he is a perfectionist, problem is there is very thin line between perfectionist and procrastinator. Finding the original issues and the compilation book from Hollow Press at a reasonable price is gonna be impossible, I know I looked. I have my copy and got it right before it went out of print. Good luck if your trying to find it.

If you want to find physical copies go look on ebay, but I got to warn you your wallet is going to be screaming to be put out of its misery.

To read the original “Biologic Show” issues digitally you can go here: https://comiconlinefree.net/the-biologic-show/issue-0

And here: https://comiconlinefree.net/the-biologic-show/issue-1