Suay Laak Sai (Sick Nurses)

Eric “recommended” Suay Laak Sai (Sick Nurses) to me because of a gory GIF he discovered on tumblr (R.I.P.). As I can count all Thai (horror) movies I have ever seen on one hand, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. So, before getting too excited, I just didn’t expect anything which was a good idea because Sick Nurses is really bad and I don’t understand why it still gets that many positive reviews from other bloggers!

The Film was written/directed by Piraphan Laoyont and Thodsapol Siriwiwat and produced by Prachya Pinkaew, director and producer of Ong-Bak. As so often with Asian horror (trash) movies, the fundamental idea is quite interesting but the visual implementation is antic.

The film takes place in a suburban Thai hospital, where Dr. Tar and his seven nurses sell dead bodies on the black market. As one of the nurses finds out that her sister is having an affair with her boyfriend (Dr. Tar), she threatens to call the police to blow their cover. The doctor and the 6 nurses decide to kill her and to keep the body cooled to make sure that it can be sold in the near future. And now, guess who is coming back to haunt the hospital crew in order to take vengeance?

Sick Nurses is a postmortal revenge movie which tries to sell/promote itself by suggesting some sex and showing one or two ok-ish gore scenes. I don’t recall how many times I’ve already said it but if you are not able to make a good film, you at least should hire some girls who will do nude scenes. This is in no way meant to be sexist but putting annoying Thai girls in sexy nurse costumes, showing some ass close-up views and kissing stuff but at the same time letting your actress shower in her clothes is a bit awkward, unimaginative and uncreative.

Uncreative is possibly the best adjective to describe the whole film and I had the feeling that the directors didn’t even try to implement their own ideas. In addition, the story doesn’t feel coherent at all. I would say that I recognize the directors’ intention to combine a postmortal ghost story à la Ringu and Ju-on with weird postmodern punk movie elements like in Tokyo Gore Police & co. Unfortunately, the result is a failed attempt since you have the feeling of watching two separate storylines that never really intersect. Not to forget the movie mistakes, the really bad acting and other obvious movie no-gos. Sick Nurses was done without passion, don’t waste your time.

Anamanaguchi – Endless Fantasy


Last week has been a big week for “electronic” music, at least in my book. Daft Punk pre-streamed their new album and Anamanaguchi released their new Endless Fantasy. While I was slightly underwhelmed by the former, the latter entirely blew me away…but let me introduce you to the band first. Anamanaguchi are an American quartet that are unarguably among the biggest of the chiptune genre. For those of you that are not familiar with this type of music: it’s basically music that is created with old consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System or the Game Boy. What differentiates these guys from the mass however is that they are, what they like to call themselves, a regular band with a NES as a singer.

The main reason why their music fascinates me as much as it does is because it raises strong nostalgic feelings in me. I am completely thrown back into my childhood of playing Nintendo or Super Nintendo and having the greatest time ever with the bits and bytes. But I am convinced that even people that do not have similar memories will be able to enjoy this record. Simply because it’s amazingly well composed and the “danceability” is extremely high, even for pillars of salt when it comes to dancing like myself.

Compared to the predecessor EP Dawn Metropolis this one is a full-length album which clocks in at just under eighty minutes (!) with a total of twenty-two songs…something very rare in today’s “fast food mindset” when it comes to album lengths. Another addition is that on a handful of songs they include, partially auto-tuned and modified, vocals; which I was skeptical towards at first. But the outcome is just so well-fitting that I’m partially sad that they’re not used on more tracks.

There is not much I can add, to be honest. You either dig this style or you don’t, it’s pretty difficult to be impartial since it’s very special and unique. I sincerely hope you give it a go and find out for yourself! More info can be found on the band’s Facebook page and you can take the “do I like chiptune?” test by watching the video below!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc3JWo2iiGc]

Electric Eye – Pick-up, Lift-off, Space, Time

A nice little piece of psychedelic rock was flying trough space and time and landed on our desk. On the one hand, Electric Eyes’ ingredients are typical for the genre: warped tunes and electronic spacy sequences. On the other, the Norwegians try to build up a hard and progressive groove, which works out most of the time due to the powerful and restless drum beat throughout every song.

Pick-up, Lift-off, Space, Time starts off with 6AM, which already clearly defines the main direction of the LP, although it sometimes feels like being a bit uninspired. Geneva is one of those atmospheric songs that you may imagine being used as background soundtrack of an IMAX documentary about our dear planet Earth. Vocals and samples show up from time to time, as well as sitars and a theremin, creating an ambiance between drug trips and Star Trek.

Tangerine is the first star of this album, building up an uneasy and optimistic atmosphere at the same time, before exploding in an almost post rock like wall of destructive sound. Definitely one of the strongest moments in Pick-up, Lift-off, Space, Time, if not even the climax of this adventure.

Negative aspects? Maybe monotony. Sometimes the drum beat annoys untrained ears, which would be a problem for the whole genre. The harsh guitar sound nevertheless brings almost every song to a point in the very right moment, as for example in The Road, the shortest song with 4:10.

The forceful sound and the wall of sensory input may sometimes overcharge the listener, although this often reflects one of the major strengths of the record. The closing song is named after the band and floats nicely between Pink Floyd and Sigur Rós before putting a grooving and enjoyable end to this versatile work of psychedelic rock. Give it a try!

Aftershock

Eli Roth teamed up with Nicolás López and Guillermo Amoedo to make a disaster movie and cast himself as one of the main roles, and it becomes clear from the get go that he reinvented neither himself, nor the wheel with that one. The first half of Aftershock centers around three friends’ debaucherous adventures (or their attempts thereof) in Chile. It relies on the “trio of travelling bros looking to get laid in a gorgeous country with prosperous nightlife” kind of humour, which is hardly revolutionary, but it was interesting to see that popular Internet culture references are making their way into film: the word “hipster” is dropped in a mocking way, the Barney Stinson “true story” meme is imitated and a troll face T-shirt is worn by a dead ringer for Zach Galifianakis. Maybe I’m just late to the party, I’m not too up to date on bro-cinema these days.

After the novelty of random meme-dropping in film wore off for me, though, I got a distinct sense of déjà vu that endured until the end of the flick. I honestly feel like I’ve seen this exact movie at least 10 times in my life. The three guys hit it off with three women and they party more or less successfully until about 35 minutes into the movie — then, a monumental earthquake spoils the fun. The transition from light-hearted comedy to full-blown “man vs. nature” gorefest is abrupt, but natural disasters don’t exactly care for smooth, gradual transitions, so I’m not going to lob that criticism at Mr. Roth. But especially once the action starts, his influence is obvious, and the movie becomes painfully predictable. The man notoriously has a penchant for pretty sick and gratuitous gore, and he does not disappoint those who like his work for it here.

Of course, nature is not the only thing man has to fear in the face of chaos and destruction; the second biggest threat will always be himself. And so a bunch of escaped convicts are unleashed to demonstrate this by hunting and torturing the heroes and heroines Roth-style.

The premise has potential, but unfortunately, there is not an ounce of originality in the execution. I did not warm up to the characters and their relationships with each other due to the uninspired acting and consequently could not care less which atrocities might happen to them, so it felt more like Hostel-type torture porn rather than a movie with a bigger message. There’s the overused cliché of the female moral center of the story, the girl with the short hair and conservative clothing, who ends up being the last one standing while the two frivolous, short-dress-wearing ones fall behind. The villains are all one-dimensional, sadistic lunatics, mere robotic devices to further the plot. It’s all been done before, and better.

If you want to watch a decent disaster movie, I suggest you get your hands on Cloverfield, for example, but stay away from this half-assed attempt. Aftershock is a mediocre film if I’ve ever seen one. It’s not bad enough to deserve the label of “trash”, it’s not entertaining enough to be a guilty pleasure — it did absolutely nothing for me, just like it did nothing for Eli Roth’s reputation as a writer-actor.

Daft Punk – Random Access Memories

First things first; don’t expect me to start this review with a quote like “They’re back!”. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo had never been away and this is not an ESPN sports announcement.

There’s been a lot of talk and anticipation about Daft Punk‘s upcoming release Random Access Memories. It first started with a 10 second guitar loop leaked somewhere on the internet until the first single Get lucky came out. Expectations were high, as people seemed to be a tad disappointed about their last release, the TRON O.S.T. , thus this album cannot be viewed as a regular album but a movie soundtrack instead, but people nowadays don’t need much input / change to quarrel.

Concerning the quarelling, Random Access Memories managed to perfectly split Daft Punk fans in two parties. The age of maximal techno / electro is long gone and climbing into the brostep / dubstep bandwagon would have been a fatal decision for a band that characterised an era for electronic music in the mid-nineties and as the new trend dictates it, disco and funk will be the next big thing; apparently.

In my defense, I have to say that I’m a disco kid, mostly influenced because of my parent’s music taste in younger years. What effect will Random Access Memories have on me? Will it work?

The opener Give life back to music dropped my jaw instantly. The sound, the groove; simply EVERYTHING has changed. Is this really Daft Punk I’m listening to, while unconsciously moving my hips in utter gusto? The guitar had me from the very fist second!

Surprisingly, the next track The game of love changes the pace to a smooth, sweaty groove that reflects the hot and horny mood disco has on people (or even couples). The vocoder may be a bit too much, but if you give this song 3-4 listens it becomes a subtle grower.

Giorgio by moroder is a masterpiece to me. What could be better than a “pseudo-documentary” intro with disco mastermind Giorgio Moroder speaking about his early stages as a musician, than to completely tear up the “interview” with a nasty synthesizer arpeggio that is addictive as hell? Right, a berzerk groove robot playing drums and a totally cheesy but awesome guitar solo at the end that catapults you to planet Disco Ball. This is a monumental ode to the emergence of disco music. It can’t get any better, or can it?

Just like the second track Within is what we used to call a slow, when we were kids. A welcome cooldown after a hot climax. The cigarette after; underlined with subtle E-Pianos, vocoder and slow percussion. Why not?

I am going to be completely candid with you, dear reader. I am not going to review any other song of the album, otherwise this review will risk to become another TL-DR review out there. Random Access Memories really is a cool album, but only if you’re into disco and if you’re willing to ACCEPT the big change of sound Daft Punk underwent. Don’t expect Homework Part 2. Just as in movies, remakes don’t touch the nerve of time; deal with it. The fat basslines are gone, there’s much more guitar on this release than on any other record and yes, this is pop music. Sceptics will welcome tracks like Get Lucky and Lose yourself to dance and won’t resist the urge to dance their asses off while considering tracks like Beyond as elevator music, but that’s understandable. Trends come and go and just as punk rock, disco never died. That’s awesome!

Hope to see you sinners on a greasy dancefloor next door, pumped with testosterone and nasty thoughts!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I]

The Convois – Ocean’s Tale


Have you ever gone to a small gig to maybe watch some of your friends play, but aside from them you didn’t know any other band that was set to appear that night? Well, exactly that happened to me last Saturday when I went to Soul Kitchen in Luxembourg for the Locals Fest 3. As I entered the venue I was surprised by a band that completely blew me away in the course of their set: The Convois! Despite a rather small crowd the band gave their everything and delivered a stunning performance. It was clear to me that I wanted to write about their music and so I asked them for their debut album Ocean’s Tale!

The band plays a very melodic type of hardcore that should be appealing to both newcomers to the genre as well as veterans. The ten songs feature some pretty intricate guitar work that shouldn’t bore you any time soon. The same can be said for the drums, which have some pretty nifty fills here and there. Instrumentally speaking there is simply nothing negative that can be said, to be honest.

The main thing that struck me however are definitely the vocals. I have to preface this by saying that when they played live they had a female singer, along their front man, which immediately peaked my interest because it’s a rather rare, but very refreshing, sight. While she had a rather prominent role in their live set, she only features on a couple of songs on the album…while it takes away a bit of the diversity of the songs it doesn’t hurt them at all. This is due to the fact that the lead singer has immensely good clean vocals and even better screams.

To sum it up, I’d say that these thirty-two minutes won’t let you down but if you want to experience The Convois the best way you can, you should head to one of their gigs. You can find a list of them on their Facebook page, and if you need convincing, listen to the song below!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdXwpX4YbGs]

Trash Monday LXVIII


There’s this peculiar thing in human behaviour I just don’t understand. If it were rugs made by exploited children in India, everyone would be appalled and disapprove such perversity. Jordy on the other hand, had a number one hit in France with the tender age of 4 years. Good thing he could keep the earnings for himself, like Indish weavers do…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IiLZ0dvDWU]

Teeth

We’ve decided to do something fun for the whole family: a quadruple movie review. Therefor we chose a movie that none of us really knew but which seemed interesting enough to get a reaction out of everyone.

Teeth (2007) is a horror film which was written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein. It premiered at Sundance in 2007 where it was claimed to be one of the most talked-about films. To sum up, Teeth is about Dawn, a high school student, who suffers from a primary sexual characteristics abnormality, which she learns to use as an advantage when she becomes the victim of sexual assault.

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Rotten Tomatoes describes Teeth as follows: Smart, original, and horrifically funny, Teeth puts a fresh feminist spin on horror movie tropes.

To be straightforward with you, I didn’t like the film at all. The pacing is incredibly boring and stands in no relation to the trashy subject itself. The humour is just miserable. Horror? Sorry but if you see any, you also call Forest Gump a soft porn movie. Two or three bitten off penises and fingers are just not enough. It seems that director Mitchell Lichtenstein has never heard of “creating an atmosphere”.

Furthermore, I have no idea what Lichtenstein wants to tell me. Teeth has absolutely no clear vision. There are simply too many different topics/genre elements in the movie which, to top it all, don’t work. The subject of feminism, which is the most obvious one, can be taken as serious as the subject of sexism in slasher/horror movies. The boys/men are portrayed as primitive sex demoniacs and act completely unnatural.

Furthermore I am pretty certain that the director was unsure about how to explain the vagina dentata phenomenon. On the one hand he throws in a few mythical elements (and I even was expecting some Sigmund Freud too), on the other hand we see this nuclear power plant all the time (nuclear mutation of the vagina?) The ending is representative for the whole flick. Lichtenstein tries to build up a twist ending (which you recognize pretty early), rethinks his decision and follows the path of a rape and revenge movie. Teeth bases on a great idea, wants too much and results in a mess.

-Luc-

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When we first talked about which movie to pick I was intrigued by this one, because quite frankly: the plot outline had a lot of potential. A young girl has teeth in her vagina and becomes a man-eater… literally. Man, was I wrong! I don’t watch a lot of films of this genre, so I had no idea how bad a movie can be. All I know is that at times I wish I was the one who was subjected to penectomy, because that would probably have been less painful to endure than these ninety minutes of garbage.

The acting was pretty terrible from start to finish, the cut-off penises looked as credible as a pink elephant’s trunk and the music left my ears with a bad case of aural diarrhea. My personal “highlight” was Dawn‘s incestuous brother who was supposed to be the tough metalhead with terribly-done make-up tattoos and a Rottweiler as his best friend. The one thing that this movie has taught me is that people who don’t masturbate on a regular basis will go completely bat-shit-crazy at some point. So in order to keep mentally healthy, choke that chicken (or rub that duck) as often you possibly can.

~Yannick~

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A good lesson this movie taught me: any movie with a laurel shrub on the poster is no guarantor for a masterpiece. As Teeth tries to caricature America’s prude position on sexuality, with organisations like The Ring Thing, Teeth is nothing but a disappointing attempt to mimic this oddball attitude of (mostly) young Christians. What is really frustrating is the fact that Teeth is too good to be called trashy and too bad to be considered a serious flick. It’s neither dick nor beaver, hence the intimidating teeth. The plot twist, if you can call it so, is as predictable as North Korea’s annual declarations of war and the step-brother’s tattoos are as true as Christian black metal.

I am not a nucular expert, but only because the family lives next to a nuclear plant does not mean that you turn into some kind of penis-eating gargoyle; unless I’m missing out the latest news of Fukushima.

Two things are for sure though: some roles will stick to the actor for a whole lifetime and in this case, Jess Weixler will forever be known as the girl with the toothed gash. And last but not least; I will never ever say “I’ll chop my fingers off for that girl” again.

Eric

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I went into the film with an open mind because it has undeniable potential. I recognise that it tries to tackle important social issues — most notably, it criticises the puritanical (and, it must be said, characteristically American) attitudes kids are taught in sex ed that end up causing more harm than good. Dawn‘s biology textbook depicts the anatomy of the penis, but the schematic illustration of the vagina is covered up by a large sticker because “girls have a natural modesty”, and so Dawn walks about the earth not really knowing what the female sex organ typically looks like and how it works. Both Dawn and her crush at the beginning of the film have made a sacred vow of abstinence because of their Christian indoctrination. The guy ends up attempting and semi-succeeding at raping Dawn because he is a violently horny bundle of sexual repression after, and this is a direct quote, not having jerked off since Easter.

Those are fair criticisms, but unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The acting is cheesy and the storyline erratic. In combination with technical slip-ups like overstated sound effects, it gives the movie a cheap, silly vibe. Furthermore, as Luc said, I’m not sure what the aim of this movie is. Is it trying to make a point about sexual violence, sexual repression, the sexual behaviour of teenagers, incest or female empowerment? Probably all of these, but it doesn’t work. I couldn’t detect the comedy in it, either. And so it ends up being just another vacuous, ill-executed pseudo-thriller with a few gore shots thrown in on the side in an attempt to make it marketable to the horror crowd.

~ Anna ~

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To be honest with you, at first we didn’t think we’d all be agreeing but Teeth, despite its great potential, sucks dick (pun intended). Don’t waste your time and forget this movie…