Street Fighter: The Movie


Street Fighter, another movie from my youth. The nineties were those times where we, as children, couldn’t care less about movie mistakes, badly cut scenes, shitty acting, miserable, far-fetched plots and other cinematic faux pas. In the end we all had fun and that’s what this movie is about. As I rarely write something about the plot I also won’t do it this time, if you want to know something check out Wikipedia. In any case, there are other things to write about.

Street Fighter II (the Super Nintendo game) is one of my all-time favorite fighting games and I have to say that I never really tried to compare the movie to the game, I simply accepted that the former is an amazing pearl of trash with really interesting scenes and insinuations most of which I only understood years later. Amongst others, there is this great hommage to the Godzilla movies. While a Chinese member of the multinational military force tapped into Bison’s security system, there all of a sudden are appearing Honda and Zangief fighting on a miniature of Bisonopolis. This scene is overlayed by the typical Godzilla cries.

Another really clever and damn perfect scene is when Gen. M. Bison tries to kill Col. Guile in his stealth boat. Bison’s killing machine looks exactely like the oldschool arcade game machines. This nearly made me cry when I first saw it!

As already pointed out that I never really compared the movie to the game but still there are some aspects which I kind of missed. In the old times I was really pissed that there were a few characters appearing in the flick which weren’t part of the “first” game. As my English was quite bad at that time I made up my own idea of who is a good and who is a bad guy, which was pretty close to the movie but I couldn’t stand these “new” characters (Dee Jay, T-Hawk, Cammy) from other Street Fighter games, which I all hated.

Furthermore I was a bit disappointed that the director decided against the characters’ special moves. No Hadouken, no Sonic Boom, no Yoga Fire and most of all no pausing during Chun-Li’s Spinning Bird Kick (especially the latter one makes me really sad). A few days ago I read an interview with Steven E. de Souza claiming that this was done on purpose because he didn’t want to connect the movie that much to the game. I’m Ok with that now.

In the end, I really do love Street Fighter and it always makes me smile. I feel like being a child again. It is like a time machine and that’s something I really adore because I had a great childhood and love(d) the nineties. You have to check it out.


Balegard – Tbst


This week I’m going to review a very fresh demo by a still rather unknown band from Finland. On September 4th Balegard released their second demo called Tbst completely for free via social networks and I decided to check them out. Let me begin by giving you a general idea about the genre: it’s black metal. They themselves call it “Tavastian Black Metal”, since lyrically it deals with the history of Finland…fair enough. I should say at this point that I’m not a huge fan of overly specific names for different sub-genres, but since it has no influence on the music itself I don’t really mind. Now, let’s begin, shall we?

Since I knew about the band prior to this release, I was pleasantly surprised by the improved sound quality in comparison to their first split-demo Routakuu. Both demos are, as far as I know, entirely self-produced and self-mixed with little to no budget so it’s quite nice to see that the band has refined their skills in that department over time…something that makes this release quite enjoyable for a “clean sound” fetishist like myself.

The riffs are well-recorded and quite catchy in most parts, something that is quite important to me in black metal since usually they are repeated quite often throughout a song. In the final part of the last song, Kalmanvesi, there’s actually a pretty cool solo that you should definitely keep your ears open for.

The drums are overall well done except one minor gripe: the bass drum is almost inaudible on two out of the three songs. A fact that one can excuse since it’s a demo and probably recorded with a single mic or two at best…but it’s something I would love to see fixed on future releases. I also noticed the drum being off-rhythm in some longer passages, something I don’t mind much since the beats themselves are interesting enough for me to ignore such minor mistakes.

Last but not least, the vocal department. This duty is shared between the two guitarists; with one doing the regular screams and the other one doing the more high-pitched ones. Both variants are sung with a sense of desperation and passion, so perfectly fitting to the theme. Speaking of which: the lyrics are entirely in Finish and mainly about the life and history in Tavastia, so heads up to those that are into that part of world history.

That pretty much sums it up on my behalf. I say you should give this demo a chance if you are even vaguely into black metal or if you want to discover a new genre through a young band with quite a lot of potential…plus it’s for free. Be sure to check out Balegard‘s Facebook page where you can find a download link to their demo and more information about the band itself. Below you can find my favorite song Hardaler. Read you next time!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3Dnax07mp4]

WhoCares – The Compilation


There isn’t much to say when two legends of hard rock/heavy metal collaborate, it either is a blessing or a catastrophe. When Tony Iommi and Ian Gillan announced their plans to record together again, people probably didn’t know what to expect since their only prior collaboration (Black Sabbath’s Born Again album) has been something of a mixed bag.

Personally, I love Born Again and after the Heaven & Hell album, Tony Iommi was on top again, so I certainly was looking forward to hearing new music from both men, although I did not know what to expect musically.

The band came together to do some charity work in Armenia and recorded a single in 2011 which contained two new songs and numerous guest musicians. Now the band has released a two disc compilation and the release has its positive and negative sides.

I got to admit that I am not really a fan of compilations, most just tend to be some sort of cash-in with some inaudible demo recordings and noisy live tracks being sold as rare. This is obviously not the case here as 90% of the songs were never released on CD before. The majority of this compilation is made up of rare B-sides from both artists. There is some Deep Purple, some Black Sabbath, some Gillan solo, some Iommi solo and the two songs from the 2011 single.

The majority of the songs feature Ian Gillan, which is fine by me as I pretty much own everything by Tony Iommi anyways. I am new to Ian Gillan, only owning the classic 70s Deep Purple outputs, thus this compilation served as an introduction to Ian’s body of work and as such succeeded without a doubt in making my mouth water for more.

So I would recommend this to people interested in discovering both artists outside of their main bands (Black Sabbath, Deep Purple), as well as Fans who need to complete their collections. Many of the songs are available here on CD for the very first time. Mentioning songs would be a stupid thing to do as the material ranges from heavy metal to hard rock to blues and even Pop/AOR rock music. You get a bit of everything, a nice thick booklet and the compilation is available at a fair price.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQYjEa3FdUo]

Trash Monday XXXIII


Beavis and Butt-head introduced me to this song and I never saw the video again, the fact that I still remember it speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Watch those dance moves lifted straight from a Van Damme flick, the 90s fashion, oh and yeah, the music.

I heard better beats while sitting on the crapper.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx64_N4AA04]

Troll 2


Troll 2 was released in 1990 by the Italian director Claudio Fragasso and is often described as the worst movie ever, which of course is absolutely bullshit. It seems that a lot of reviewers and so-called journalists have never seen Piratenmassaker, which without any doubt is the worst flick ever made. Piratenmassaker is like Bono from U2 playing Nickelback songs in a duet with Scott Stapp. Troll 2 is completely different and one of my favourite cult comedy movies.

However, in order to understand Troll 2 and its epicness you have to consider some simple “facts”, which I define as The 7 Holy Commandments Always Having In Mind While Watching Troll 2.

  1. Do not expect a horror movie. Troll 2 is more like an unintended trash comedy.
  2. Other than director Fragasso you, at no moment, should consider this flick as an attempt of changing the history of cinema. The director must have constantly been on drugs for the last 2 decades declaring his movie as a serious one.
  3. Always remember that Troll 2 has nothing to do with Troll from 1986. There even are not trolls, only dwarfs dressed-up as vegetarian killer goblins. (amazing, simply AMAZING!)
  4. Furthermore have in mind that these vegetarian goblins turn people into plants in order to eat them.
  5. The cheap costume designs mainly consist of potato sacks and static Halloween masks made by…ATTENTION…the Dutch soft-porn actress Laura Gemser. Costume design probably only consisted in sewing and buying some masks.
  6. The actors are all rookies and behave like overacting monkeys on Valium suffering from facioplegia. Combined with the really great but confused and fucked-up storyline, monologues and dialogues together with Fragasso’s lack of English make this movie to something outstandingly amusing. Here is one example of what I mean:
  7. If you can’t resist searching for something which actually has something to do with professional film-making (only god knows why you would do that) you should focus on the camera work. Director of photography Giancarlo Ferrando was probably the only one on the set who knew what he was doing.

All in all Troll 2 is a ridiculous and completely absurd campy movie with a lot of charm. Beside the 7 holy commandments I just explained, the movie also taught me really useful and important lessons which, from now on, I will always consider in real life. So here is the second segment of the movie review called Things I Have Learned From Troll 2.

  • Vegans cannot be trusted anymore. They may be killer goblins!
  • Drugs are bad. Never smoke pot while writing a plot.
  • Italian directors are crazy as shit.
  • It is absolutely legitimate to dress-up dwarfs as goblins and call your movie Troll 2.
  • People at IMDB have no clue when it comes to good/bad movies.
  • You should hire a soft-porn actress only for one purpose and I am not talking about costume designs.

I rated Troll 2 with a ten out of ten. Ok, it certainly has not turned out how it was supposed to but the flick is hilarious and never gets boring and in the end, that’s the most important thing.

Also check out the documentary about Troll 2: Best Worst Movie.


The Intersphere – Hold On, Liberty!


When I discovered The Intersphere for the first time at this year’s Food For Your Senses Festival, I described their sound as a mixture between softer and harder post-core elements with Muse-ish riffs and clean Fall-Out-Boy-ish vocals. An impression that is confirmed throughout their 2012 release Hold on, Liberty!, combined with a solid touch of pop-rock.

The album, however, takes its time to warm-up and you may get lost a little between Coldplay keyboards and Finnish-like rock vocals; negative appearances that are deceitful until Sleeping God and Hold On, Liberty reveal the true dynamics of this long player. It’s not the presence of any kind of innovation but the playfulness and the catchy post-core grooves that may make you appreciate the German quartet’s work. I know I am using the word “catchy” way to often to describe sounds, but again I can’t prevent myself from doing it.

Still, outbursts like in Capitali just happen too rarely for my taste, but hey, music reviews will never be objective. Unleashing the dogs called drummer and bassist turns out to be a very good idea – this is the essence that creates the groove and makes their live shows so enjoyable.

The girlish, romantic, melodic refrains shouldn’t evoke too much macho behavior, I know, this is not a metal release, but those guys don’t deserve to be characterized too early as a soft-rock band. The album sound, in my eyes, doesn’t do enough justice to their powerful live sound though, although it definitely is a grower. It nevertheless is worth a buy if you like to cool down a bit the violence that the most post-core bands dash out of their amps.

This may not be a continuously compelling album, but a release with many great sounding melodic and rocking parts to discover!

Recommendations: Sleeping God, Hold On, Liberty, Parallel Lines
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZmFLQi2MwM]

Stone Sour – Stone Sour


Today I’m going to review another CD that will most likely stay in my top 3 of all time forever. Ironically, it features two members from this album…ladies and gentlemen, I give you Stone Sour and their self-titled debut album.

Stone Sour have their roots in 1992, way before Slipknot, but only saw mainstream success in 2002 when they signed to Roadrunner Records. Back then they were considered a mere side-project of Slipknot singer, Corey Taylor, and Slipknot guitarist, Jim Root, but especially in recent times they have evolved into an equally respected band.

But back on topic: this album may sound like a toned down version of any given Slipknot record at first, but you’ll quickly notice that it’s a completely different approach to music. Groovier riffs, more rhythmic drumming and super catchy choruses keep coming at you non-stop.

The guitar parts are filled with little licks that are quite subtle at first but will be stuck in your eardrums after the second listening session at the latest. Even though they are vastly groovier than the usual, they remain heavy where necessary; in perfect harmony. The bass also doesn’t come too short either and delivers some really catchy lines all throughout the fifty-one minutes.

In the drum department you will be looking in vain for any blasting or any super fast double bass action. But trust me when I say that you’ll be tapping along with your fingers in no-time. Plus there are so many little nuances that even after listening to the record for years now, I still find a note or two I never noticed before.

The vocals…where do I begin? Well, to be fair, I’m a huge fan of Corey’s voice and lyrics, so I’ll try to keep as objective as possible. Nah…fuck that. To me, he delivers his best performance on this album for several reasons: first of all, this was during the down time between IOWA and Vol. 3 (by Slipknot) and his voice was the ideal mix between his early aggressiveness and his later cleanliness. Secondly, he sings his first ballad which was a big “whoa” moment at the time. On top of that it features his probably best lyrical work so far, but you should be your own judge there. I for one identify with a lot of the lines and this record has helped through some self-finding periods on many occasions.

This is definitely their strongest album for me even though the other two had a lot of highlights as well. Maybe their new release in October will change that, but to be quite frank: I doubt it since this album and I have such a long history. If you can, I strongly recommend getting the limited edition since it adds five really good songs to the already thirteen song strong work.

Check their Facebook page if you want to keep up to date and be sure to listen to the song below; even though it’s not the ballad I mentioned earlier, which is called Bother by the way, it might just give you a similar effect.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NHz3Koj7o0]

Baby-Sitting


Hello world. It is Friday again and this time I really had my difficulties to choose a movie in order not to stick to these weird Japanese flicks I reviewed so often in the last weeks. While browsing through the internet I came across a very interesting movie title and auspicious trailer. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any further information or even the whole movie (yeah I download/stream stuff and if I like it I buy it). But as I said I couldn’t find anything but the director’s email address. What can I say? Well I think that I rarely have met such a straightforward dude on a “semi-professional” basis and that’s also why I wanted to try something new in order to not only do a review but combine it with an interview (which I feel needs to be extended).

After I saw Baby-Sitting for the first time there was one name which immediately came to my mind: Roald Dahl. I am not talking about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or even Matilda, no I am talking about the wonderfully weird and macabre stuff he did. Comparing one’s work to Roald Dahl should, in the majority of cases, fulfill the idea of reviewing a flick but limiting Baby-Sitting to this fact just wouldn’t be fair because there is a bit more to talk about. First, Lucas Masson did an absolutely fantastic music selection, especially Freak In The City by Never Been is ear candy. Furthermore the actors, mainly the children, did an outstanding job with being very authentic, believable and completely nuts. At some point in the movie I was wondering if the boy could in anyway be distantly related to Paul from the original Funny Games. Masson so to say plays a lot with psycho horror movie elements but does it in a nice and fresh way. The psychological elements, being stronger in the first part, are than exchanged for a nice touch of gore and black humor in the second part. To conclude I have to admit that this guy has an extremely good sense of mixing all kinds of different horror elements in a very interesting manner.

Of course you should always have in mind that Baby-Sitting is a low-budget flick but considering the budget (with approximately 1600 euros) and the time (8 days with only filming during weekends) these guys invested, the result is even more surprising and it is no surprise that this movie already has been selected for 8 film festivals. Coming up next are a few questions I wanted Lucas Masson to answer, so keep on reading and tell us what you think about it.

El Gore: Something I really do appreciate is when a director decides to let people speak in their mother tongue. Personally I think that emotions are better put across and I always watch movies in the original language. Is this something you care about too?

Lucas Masson: Absolutely. I also only watch movies in the original language. I cannot stand the dubbed version as it takes away a big part of the actors’ performances.

For Baby-Sitting the choice was risky. Even though it is a complete French production, I knew that it would find better audiences in countries like England or the United states, where there’s a whole crowd of horror aficionados (of course we have a few over here, but French festivals aren’t big fans of splatter cinema). However the story took place in France so there was no point in making french actors speak English. It just made no sense. In the end I’m glad we shot it in French. And most of the festivals that selected it are from English-speaking countries.

EG: Do you plan on releasing Baby-Sitting on DVD and will we be able to see the full-length movie with 23 minutes running time?

LM: We’d love to but want to wait and see how it does in festivals and various competitions first. It will indeed probably include the uncut version since the 20 minute was made because of some festivals requirements regarding length. We also have quite a few behind the scenes videos which I feel are always interesting to watch when it comes to very small productions like Baby-Sitting so I’d love to put those in there too.

EG: You describe Baby–Sitting as a full dedication to the horror genre. What are your personal and professional inspirations?

LM: I’ve been a big horror fan ever since I was a child. My father showed me a lot of Horror and Sci-fi movies, so I grew up with them. I love all kind because I think the genre offers multiple storytelling possibilities. You can either tackle serious issues and develop very strong characters by confronting them with extraordinary events or having fun doing something completely over the top that people can watch for fun and guilty pleasure. For Baby-Sitting it was definitely the second option. As it was meant to be short and with a more than tiny budget, we wanted to make something simple, unpretentious with extreme dark humor and gory sequences. I was of course thinking of Bad Taste or Evil Dead in a way but with a more mysterious atmosphere like the ones you can find in old days Argento’s movies. I also adore other different great filmmakers like John Carpenter, Rob Zombie or also Robert Rodriguez.

EG: I didn’t know any of the actors in the first place, but they all, and especially Vasco Bailly Gentaud, did a really good job. How difficult was the filming especially for the children staying “paralyzed” during nearly the whole movie?

LM: Actually that part wasn’t difficult at all. Both the children already had shooting experience and were extremely patient. The difficult part was every gory scene that included Prune Richard (the little girl). It turned out she couldn’t stand the sight of blood. So we had to find a way to shoot every bloody effects without her in the room and clean everything before she could enter the set again. It was quite tricky and some scenes had to be rewritten. With Vasco it was a complete different story though. Despite his young age, he was very professional and more importantly he already loved horror movies. This was a great asset since he made the distinction between special effects and reality instantly and we had an amazing time shooting his horror sequences. He is a talented actor for his age and he exceeded all my expectations. I think he looks genuinely evil in those sequences.

EG: What can we expect from you and especially the Panic Attack (click me) Organization?

LM: We have a very short film about animal rights coming up. It’s something I feel very dedicated to and I’m anxious to do it right. I also really want to make a longer film. I like short films but I always feel frustrated in the end because I feel like I don’t have enough time to work on character development as I wish I could and I’d like to make stories more suspenseful with greater twists and turns. We first thought of a web-series and even wrote an entire script but we needed too much time and money so we had to postpone it for a while. Instead, I’m thinking of a short film trilogy, which could be a good alternative. We’d also like to organize a Horror Festival, but that’s just a project for now.

EG: How does it feel doing a trailer for the great David Cronenberg?

LM: It was really awesome. I mean it’s not as if he came directly to me and asked me for a trailer. I’m lucky enough to work for a French agency that makes all kind of international teasers and trailers named Sonia Tout Court. In this case it was one disturbing movie. But it was really interesting working on the promotion and there were enough twisted dialogues in it to do something fun.

EG: Thanks for the flick and the interview man. I wish you all the best for the future!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryx82Pq4n9I]



Abstract Rapture – Earthcrush


It’s time for another well-known Luxembourgish band: Abstract Rapture. These guys have been around for close to ten years and in 2011 they released the long-awaited follow-up to their 2008 album Democadencia. The rather fitting title they chose: Earthcrush. Please note that because of scheduling problems the release party for the album was only in early 2012, so to most people it’s still rather fresh.

The reason why the title is fitting can be noticed right after the intro: everything is even bigger, faster and most of all more aggressive than before. Instead of starting a bit on the groovy side like the opener of the predecessor, this first song just blows your face off right off the bat. This goes on for quite some time until the forth song where the clean vocals start appearing, but just in small doses unlike on the previous record.

In the guitar department you can definitely notice a more mature style of writing with more complex structures and cleaner execution. The same goes for the sound which, at least in my ears, sounds a bit stronger and more tight. The melodic department doesn’t come too short either, even though it seems to have been toned down a bit. This sadly contributes to the fact that the album has less easily recognizable riffs.

The drums are almost not worth talking about since they’re at their usual very high standard throughout the 11 songs…people who know who’s drumming know the reason for that. However, similar to the guitars the speed has gone up another level and you’re treated to tinnitus-inducing beats; but in the good way.

As I mentioned a bit earlier, the vocals are a lot more aggressive and feature less melodic singing than what returning listeners are used to. This is however not a bad thing since the vocalist has a very powerful and charismatic voice that will stay imprinted in your ears for a while after listening to these 40 minutes of music.

To wrap things up I can only say that, while I’m sure newcomers to the band will surely enjoy this record since it’s filled with cool songs, I think it’s too straight forward. The previous album was criticized for having a few too many melodious parts; Abstract took that critique to heart and went balls to the walls with this attempt…however I prefer their debut Dead End Entry since it’s the perfect mix of both elements in my ears. I’m looking forward to their next release and I recommend you check this one out in the meantime.

You can follow the band on their Facebook page and check out the live video below, which Bördi kindly allowed me to use.

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