Teddy: It’s Gonna Be a Bear

I was born in the mid 80ies and so, logically the first slasher movie I saw was Scream 1. In addition I have to admit that I, as a big horror fan, have never seen a Nightmare On Elm Street movie (shame on me) and the interest in Halloween just came recently. In fact, I saw the original Halloween after Rob Zombie‘s first one (which I quite like) and only recently started watching all the campy cult slasher movies from the 80ies. As you for sure have realized now, I am pretty much a noob when it comes to genre movies but I am always very open to „new“ stuff and of course love independent movies and that’s why I decided to do a little something about Teddy: It’s Gonna Be a Bear. Do not expect a genre review and don’t nail me down to every statement I make.

The Teddy project was first brought to me by writer and Executive Producer Kevin Sommerfield who, together with Steve Goltz (director and co-writer), runs the Slasher Studios. Teddy is the studio’s first short movie and was finished in February 2011 with Sommerfield claiming that it is a new experiment in terror and a throwback to the slasher films of the 1980′s.

The story, or let’s rather say the beginning of the movie, reminds me loosely of I know what you did last summer from 1997. 4 teenagers kill a man (Kirk Gilbert) by hitting him with their car. They roll him in the god damn ditch and continue their camping trip. What they do not know is that the man’s mentally retarded son (Keegan Bergen) witnessed the whole razzmatazz and decides to avenge his father.

 As I already mentionned in an other movie review it is really difficult to shoot a short movie and it is often underestimated. You have to get the viewer’s attention right from the beginning and the climax build-up and its positioning are crucial and often fails due to the short time given. When I first saw Teddy I had exactly this feeling but after the second watch I realized that Steve and Kevin simply didn’t put that much weight or importance on the climax build-up. Teddy gets down to business pretty fast.

On the one side I would have loved to see more detailed killing scenes, but on the other side I know that detailed death scenes are really time and money consuming with both being the two deadliest ennemies of (independent) filmmakers. Furthermore I think that slasher flicks also have to play with the viewer’s imagination in order to work, so this is not a negative aspect but rather a personal affectation of mine. In the end the kills are well-chosen, innovative and even pretty funny. As I am a big fan of handmade effects, I also want to thank Sommerfield, Goltz and their team for making them on their own and not using fucked-up CGI effects.

The music is spine-chilling, well chosen and perfectly placed in every single scene throughout the movie. The actors were quite decent for an independent movie, with Steve Goltz and Kevein Sommerfield standing out from the rest. Their caracters (Clay and Aaron) are incredibly over-stylized and humorous. Goltz is the muscled, arrogant, drinking asshole, who only has beer, sex, and later on an axe in his head. Sommerfield is the exact opposite and plays the random loser who in the end got nothing but a stick up his ass. The girls were nice to watch and the killer did his job.

Teddy is a nice little horror flick with funny details and typical, stereotyped slasher elements. Do not expect anything new, which for sure wasn’t Kevin and Steve’s intention but if you are interested in oldschool or even modern genre movies you should give Teddy a try. It is a nice 11 mins movie by dedicated independent people who believe in 80ies horror and who want to prevent it from dying unlike 99% of the people in the movie.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUKRT8nUpZE]

Finally if you like what you see/saw you can support the studio’s upcoming slasher feature, Don’t Go to the Reunion. There are only a few days left on the kickstarter. So check it out here

Legends Of The Night – Predation

Today I’m going to review something I haven’t done for El Gore so far: a comic; more precisely Predation from the Legends Of The Night series. In case you have never heard of it, which is likely, let me introduce you to this horror comic by Karl White: it’s a completely independent series which has three issues so far and one compendium that explains the history of the world the stories are set in. They are all drawn by different artists and the one I chose to review features art by Jm Ringuet. I have to warn you: the review will be quite spoilery…so continue at your own discretion.

The plot is quite simple: a serial killer, Charles Mercer, is looking for a new victim and through an unlucky coincidence he ends up finding it in the form of a shy librarian. He stalks her, knocks her out and drags her to his basement where he ties her up on an autopsy table. Here he proceeds to slice her open with a scalpel in order to gut her like a pig. However, his plans are dramatically changed when the woman starts to twist and scream, only to transform into a werewolf.

As the hunter becomes the prey he runs for his life and looks for refuge in the woods, to no avail. He flees further and ends up in the neighbor’s barn where he is discovered by the owner, Mr. Horn, who threatens him with a shotgun. A panel later he gets his head chewed off which must make him the most short-lived character in a comic book, but at least it’s a gory departure.

Charles continues his flight and bumps into a girl, who I believe is the farmer’s daughter, driving a car. Honoring every women-on-the-wheel cliché she crashes into a horse only moments later and is catapulted through the window, a friendly reminder to put on a seatbelt. This brings the headcount to two, three including our four-legged friend, in a matter of three pages. Our main protagonist then runs back towards his home and enters his basement again where he grabs an axe to face the she-wolf. The ending is as you might expect it to be: pure karma.

The artwork is fitting to the genre, with focus on the gore and blood. But I have to admit that I wasn’t blown away by it. Then again: comics like The Walking Dead aren’t all that much of an eye-candy either. As long as the drawings convey the story  in an understandable way it’s enough to satisfy me.

All in all, I’d advise people that are into horror comics to give this comic a try. Especially since it’s distributed in a digital form and is therefore easy to access. I included a link for the German Amazon…the US Amazon links can be found on their website here. Enjoy!

A Mute Appeal – Convictions Of Empires

It’s time to check out what’s been happening in the Luxembourgish scene again and what better way to do this than by checking one of the releases that I didn’t get around to review last year. I’m of course talking about A Mute Appeal, who released their debut EP Convictions Of Empires on December 1st. The band is comprised of five relatively young guys that play deathcore since 2011.

During my first listening session I was struck by one thing that has already bothered me on one of my previous reviews: two of the eight songs are intros. It’s nothing too annoying but in my opinion it could just have been one song. Then there’s also another brief interlude towards the end, which puts the actual song count down to five. The songs do make up for it but, personally, I’m not really a fan of intermissions on an EP.

The guitars are just right for the genre and have some interesting riffs that made me skip back a couple of times to enjoy them once again. The sound could be slightly sharper but no minus points there from me…it doesn’t always have to be perfectly produced to sound good. I can’t say anything bad about the drums at all: I like their sound and the frequent usage of double bass…my needs are satisfied.

Something that I am a bit disappointed by are the vocals…let me explain: I saw the band for the first time at FFYS last year and I was amazed by the singer because he killed it, especially considering that they were one of the first bands of the day. When I listened to the record though, his growls seemed weaker than at the show and his screeches, which did retain the quality I remembered, were rather poorly mixed. It’s a bit of a shame to me since the vocals were the one thing that I especially liked about their sound.

All in all, I’d say that Convictions Of Empires is a decent first release and that it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of the genre. Nevertheless, I’m more interested in what the future holds for these guys since one thing they do not lack is talent and I’m convinced that with a little bit of polish they can easily surpass their first effort. Check out the band on Facebook and don’t hesitate to listen to the entire album on their Bandcamp page below.

Elephant on Onyx – EOO Demo

What are you gonna do when you’re up for some unknown music, given that most of your favourite bands haven’t had a new release yet? Right, read some magazines or go to the internet and trawl bandcamp.

Elephant on Onyx are a band you may (at least for the moment) only meet by chance on one of your internet safaris. Their debut EP (or demo) can be downloaded for free (or for a price of your choice) on their bandcamp site, so this may just be a short appetiser for what’s about to happen.

The four Italian’s 4 track EP often recalls the good old Fu Manchu 90s, although the overall guitar sound contains a stronger prise of heaviness. The start unfortunately comes over like a curtailed experimentation of an electro intro mixed with a short riff that also could easily have been a jingle for some cheap product on a midnight TV program. Predator thankfully saves the day and gives the direction of the characterising sound of 90s stoner and psychedelic rock.

Be it fast parts or doom, Elephant on Onyx do a good overall job, but the listener shouldn’t expect huge innovations of the genre. Moreover, the vocals sometimes drone out in a way that is way too Fu Manchesque, sometimes at the riffs cost. Nevertheless, the changes from heavy stoner parts to psychedelic melodies evoke a pretty good feeling, and one should try this appetiser and remain very curious about the way a potential full album will sound like.

Microwave Massacre

In the whole trash horror movie scene it was at one point very popular to label the movies with quotes like: the worst movie ever done, so bad that it is good , the worst horror movie you have ever seen and stuff like that in order to hope that the flick gets a cult following (c.f. Troll 2, Troma stuff). It is the same as nowadays people lable their movies with Tarantino’s favourite movie, Tarantino farted during the intro or Tarantino ate a burrito with his best friend when this movie premiered 1000 miles away. The Tarantino just as the „worst movie“ slogans have something in common, they are simply meaningless and often a lie.

Microwave Massacre (1983) is one of those movies where marketing people try or tried to merchandise and promote it with a worst horror movie of all time slogan. In this case it is inappropriate because most of the time the movie is simply not “that” bad that it is really good or funny again, except for the really genius beginning. The writers tried hard, especially with the dialogues but in the end, I think this is the problem, they tried too hard. Even for 1983 most of the dialogues are simply bromidic and often consist of pseudo trashy one-liners (some of them can be read here)  (I still have to admit that I smirked 2 or 3 times but this is simply not enough). Microwave Massacre is again one of the movies where you simply expect a little more just because of the title.

What else can you expect from the movie? Well, the actors are as talented as a paraplegic doing ballet, there are a lot of hookers and logically nudity and even more fake, plastic body parts accompanied with an incredible cheesy synth soundtrack and really awful props, loosely based on the formula of one wise man: “In order to sell your B-Movie, you have to include blood, boobs and a beast”. In the end, just imagine a bad cannibal B-Movie that lives up to nearly every single superficial cliché you know and concentrates on a man killing/eating his wife, then switches over to hookers and prepares the meat in his microwave.

To conclude, let’s say that Microwave Massacre isn’t a must see but rather an amusing can-be seen which, I personally think, you should watch with a few male (!) firends, lots of beer and pizza. Finally, as so often, do not forget to put your brain on standby and the flick may work. If you are a fan of trash give it a try.

Serpent’s Tongue – Desolation & Vices (double review)

If you’ve read a couple of my reviews you know that I’m mostly into post-hardcore and metalcore. However, I love me some hardcore from time to time, and what better way is there to do so than by checking out a new band that isn’t influenced by a record label?

This is why today’s review is going to be about Serpent’s Tongue, an Indiana based quartet. But to make things a little more interesting I’ll review both their releases, the first one being Vices which was released in March 2012.

The six songs start off without any delay and deliver punch after punch and before you even realize what’s happening to your eardrums, the EP is over. This is partly due to its Guinness-worthy length of eight minutes and a half, but also to the fact that no song sounds like the other which is something that impressed me.

If I had to describe the direction of the instruments I’d say that it has a very beatdown-esque vibe to it: relentless drum rhythms, heavily accented bass guitars and simple but effective riffs. Might not be ideal for everybody’s ears but I dig it; it makes me want to punch baby pandas…OK, maybe not.

The vocals are the one thing that absolutely sell it for me though: the vocalist screams his heart out and leaves no doubt that he’s into what he does. My personal highlight being the “intro” to the second song Faces And Revenge.

But why babble so much? Check out the record below and be your own judge.

Their second release Desolation, which was released in December last year, starts a bit differently but with the same train of thought: fuck shit up. The track count has been reduced to five but augmented in length to twelve minutes.

Luckily, the increased duration doesn’t take anything away from the intensity and you’re treated to basically the same approach in the instrumental department. The production has seen a slight change as well: whereas the predecessor was slightly rougher, this one has a bit more fine-tuned feel to it which goes quite nicely with the lengthier songs.

The vocals remain strong but with slightly more diversity, so nothing to complain about there. Another surprise there, I have to admit, since in a matter of nine months the band managed to improve upon something that was already quite enjoyable to begin with.

Again, talking about it doesn’t do it justice…so make up your own mind below.

All in all, this band definitely deserves the twenty minutes of your time, that it takes you to listen to both releases. I’d say that you get your money’s worth but that would be a lie since both EPs can be downloaded absolutely for free. If you want to keep up with future releases by the band, be sure to check out their Facebook page!

The Sacrificed – III

The Sacrificed are a white metal band from Florida and III is their, you guessed it, third release, though their first release was a self-released demo that has been re-released later on as a full-length.

At this time I am only familiar with this album (second full-length on its way to me) and from what I read it is more progressive than their earlier stuff.
The album is being compared a lot to bands like Queensryche, Dream Theater, Crimson Glory, Symphony X and the likes.
Personally, I can see why but I would never compare this to Dream Theater. This band is clearly a heavy metal band, unlike Dream Theater who, at least to me, never show their passion for classic heavy metal bands.

As a matter of fact, I would compare The Sacrificed to Fates Warning. The progressive elements in their sound are similar to those found on Fates Warning records and both bands love their metal heavy.
At times I can hear some early (The Warning era) Queensryche melodies and they actually even cover Before the Storm from said Queensryche full-length.

The album has been blasting out of my speakers for the last couple days. I love every song on it and the cover song actually made me go back and rediscover the original again, that pretty much is what a good cover is supposed to do.

My only complaint, and it isn’t the band’s fault, is the lack of money spent on this release. The booklet looks cheap, the paper feels cheap, the colours look cheap, no band pictures and the production could have been better.
Back in 1988 this band/album would have sounded way better. Biggest complaint is the drum sound, just horrible! Next time just use a drum computer, those double bass attacks sound like a cheap toy AK-47 made in Taiwan. Triggers suck!

However this should not put you off, great songwriting, awesome guitarist and vocalist. They lyrics, eventhough Christian, are not preachy and I doubt the band throws bibles at the audience like our favorite black ‘n yellow fashion criminals (Stryper for those who don’t know what I am talking about).

Love it melodic and progressive? Are you open-minded?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAae2z9pulU]

Go out and get this!

Sun Glitters – Everything Could Be Fine

In case you’ve never heard of Sun Glitters before, it’s the new project from Luxembourg’s well known artist Victor Ferreira, formerly known as Sug(R)cane. What used to be downtempo electronica is now an ocean of lush melodies, as described on his website, or chillwave; as most of us call it. What can we expect? Let’s say Sun Glitters is a neat mixture between Gold Panda, Burial and Four Tet with a sound that is very melancholic and plunges the listener into a dreamy mood (quite fitting for this time of year).

Songs like A dragonfly in the city remind me of Burial’s Untrue album, which is meant as a compliment, for that album was a milestone when it came out and I really like the gloomy atmosphere on that track. There are also “groovier” titles like Everything could be fine or the opener Beside Me, which is a very good opening title as the album really gets the listener’s attention from the first to the last second without getting too repetitive or predictable. Honestly, it’s the perfect soundtrack during a roadtrip at sunrise.

The only downside of the album is the total playtime which is 27 minutes! I mean, I don’t want to sound like a spoilt child, but if you pamper me with such good tunes I want more of it than just a small foreplay! In case you read this, senhor Ferreira, I want more! Thank you!