Dirty Crows Album Pre-Production Day 1

The Fiction is equipped, the dixi toilet is officially declared open, the Playstation one is plugged in: day 1 of the pre-production of the first Dirty Crows album was a lot of fun and a lot of work. And the baby is growing, you could feel it. Jan Kerscher is just nuts (quote from the band), in a positive way!

The songs are going to be different, fuller, stronger. The band is learning and they are driven by a motivated producer who urges them to a different level. Daniel’s hands are already a mess. He’s looking forward to day 7.

But apart from the physical problems the atmosphere is good, the minds are focused, and the location (kindly provided by Inborn!, thumbs up for that!) is just great.

Stay tuned!

Weekend


During El Gore’s trip to Finland (2011)

We wish you a very nice weekend and a lot of fun. For those who live around or in Luxembourg, there is a really cool rock and roll gig (with The Jacob Conspiracy and Dirty Crows) in Clausen/Luxembourg City tonight. El Gore will be there, so if you don’t know what to do, join us and we’ll have a beer.

I want to finish by showing you this song, which resumes everything the El Gore blog stands for!

We salute you!

-The El Gore Team-

THE ABC’s OF DEATH & “T is for Toilet”


It was yesterday when the 26th director for the 2012 Feature film THE ABC’s OF DEATH was chosen. THE ABC’s OF DEATH is a project inspired by Angela Banner‘s early educational books where a story was told by learning the alphabet. You maybe know that these early books often, just like fairy tales, use punishement, fear, psycological and physiological violence in order to teach the youth. ANT and Tim, the team behind the project, tell us on their website that this idea of fear and punishment is in some way a component of THE ABC’s OF DEATH. On the other hand they want to offer a platform for uprising horror directors (among some established names) to show their talent to the world and the movie industry.

So 25 out of 26 directors were known. There are inter alia:  Jason Eisner (Hobo with a shotgun), Xavier Gens (Frontiers), Noboru Iguchi (RoboGeisha, The Machine Girl), Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police), Srdjan Spasojevic (A Serbian Film), Yûdai Yamaguchi (Battlefield Baseball). This is an epic cast of modern splatte’n’gore movie directors (especially the Asian fraction is pure awesomness!). Now the fans had to vote for 10 movies (on youtube and/or vimeo) which made it to the final round from where the 25 directors of the sick bastard cast (a special hi to Mr. Spasojevic ;)) had to chose 1 winner.

The short movie title should start with a “T” and the story should be inspired by the chosen word. Nearly everything was allowed and creativity just as the “Holy Shit” factor played a very important role. I don’t want to keep you in suspense anymore. It is Lee Hardcastle‘s “T is for Toilet” who made the race. This is an absolutely great claymation short movie and a deserved winner!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCmMebE0pIg]

I am really, really looking forward to seeing the feature film THE ABC’s OF DEATH and so should you!

Congratulations to Lee Hardcastle and I wish you good luck for the future, your movie does not have to hide behind the other great names!

Important Links:
THE ABC’s OF DEATH
Hardcastle’s Youtube Channel

Tweak Bird – Tweak Bird


As you may have noticed I’m in a mood for simple rock music these days. Well then let’s have a look at another band which doesn’t need complex arrangements or five different instruments to knock me out of my socks.

Dirty guitar, aggressive drumming, The Future’s coming, that’s how Tweak Bird’s second and self titled album welcomes you. Two very feminine voices will lead you through the coming 27 minutes and 16 seconds. Shock moment: when you google the very feminine voices you’ll find two very bearded men, one on guitar, one on drums. So again, we’re talking about a two-man-band here. And again, no lack of energy! Round Trippin’ is a 1:12 minutes shorty which may cause massive brain damage. It is followed by A Sun / Ahh Ahh , the album’s first single. This track pretty much sums up the sound of these two fellows: distorted rock’n’roll with a Red Indian touch, due to the singing, including a psychedelic and 70s touch. Did he write Red Indian? Yep! If I had to draw a picture about how this sounds, it would look like the CD’s cover.

Beyond increases the pace again and so we’re already half trough. The second half starts with two powerful but melodious tomahawks before Flyin’ High offers us the peace pipe, filled with dubious substances. The get-out dance is called Distant Airways, very dark, very dry, you’re alone in the desert again, have fun with the coyotes!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V42dOH57kGc]
Recommendations: The Future, A Sun / Ahh Ahh, Beyond.

Slash-In-The-Box


As you for sure have noticed, Eric and me have a soft spot for all kind of different short movies. Yesterday, when I was talking to Eric about what reviewing next, I came to the conclusion to do one of my all-time favorites and well-known classic short flick (I won’t tell you which one I mean;)). Before I went to bed I checked all my mails, twitter and stuff just to see that writer and director Nick Everhart wrote me a direct promotion message. I have to say that my timeline was full of puff pieces for Slash-In-The-Boxes all over the day and that’s why I already have seen it. But it only was later that day, after the private message, when I decided to postpone my other review and to give this one a try.

The main reason behind my idea of doing a review is not the fact that Slash-In-The-Boxes is a horror movie but as I already wrote in another post, it’s my idea of supporting young directors and producers who love what they do and that’ s exactly what you can see and feel while watching this 5 min long flick. The most important and simultaneously the most difficult  thing about (horror) short movies is to draw the exact balanced line between building up an atmosphere with an interesting story and coming to the point as soon as possible while keeping the right moment of climaxing in mind. I’ll try not to spoiler  but I can assure you that this movie achieve all these, even though subjective, criteria.

Furthermore, kudos to Nick Everhart for the Baseball scene and the well elaborated and typical slasher camera move at the end of it. While talking about stuff I like and movie characteristics I have to say that the cast of Elizabeth Masucci was a really nice choice. Every man likes having a pretty girl in his horror movie. The role of a cute, blonde slasher flick girl wearing short pans is always nice to watch.

Enough ass-kissing now. There are also a few things which I didn’t like. The first murder scene doesn’t work for me and the fake blood could have been a bit more realistic. Why doesn’t it work? Of course this is a personal opinion again but I blame the vertical camera movement for it. I think that the duration of the scene is a bit too long and too constant.

Spoiler in the next paragraph

I really liked the ending but something bothers me. Maybe I just don’t get it (if so, please explain it to me in the comment box), but how is it possible that a head of an adult man all of a sudden fits into a small clown toy box thing? I don’ t get the shrinking of the head. For me, the scene would have worked much better if it was the box growing (and not the head shrinking).

The critics may sound like I don’t appreciate or like the movie, which isn’t true. All in all Nick Everhart did a great job and as a horror fan you should not miss this short.

Slash-In-The-Box from NICK EVERHART on Vimeo.

pictures are retrieved from the official website PopGoesTheEvil.com  and Vimeo



Staplerfahrer Klaus

Directed by: Stefan Prehn & Jörg Wagner

Produced by: Michael Sombetzki

Starring: Konstantin Graudus

It seems just like yesterday when I first saw this gem of a short movie at Luc’s place. I remember watching Forklift Driver Klaus 6 years ago and the impact it had on me, since I’m not the biggest gore afficionado; but this masterpiece was just right for me. But what is this movie about, after all?

This shortie is about Klaus’ first workday as a forklift driver where everything could possibly go wrong, from people falling off the forklift to amputations and a possessed motorsaw. The movie’s runtime is 9 minutes and just perfect for a no-brainer which parodies work safety films from the 80’s at its best.

Considering the budget of 90,000 € the effects are well made and the entertainment is at it’s highest possible value; so whenever you see this DVD for sale (which should cost no more than 5 bucks) grab this classic as fast as you can because it’s totally worth the money. The DVD features over 70 minutes of bonus material from interviews with the makers, storyboard and so on. Needless to mention that this movie earned a lot of awards among other the Canal+ International Award for Best Short Film in 2001.

Conclusion: LOVE LOVE LOVE

If you’re curious enough you can watch the whole movie on the video platform of your choice; yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

Save The Chapel


This is a very important issue for me. I just read on Cinemassacre’s homepage that the chapel from the classic zombie movie Night of the Living Dead (1968) is in danger. Gary Streiner, who lives in Evans City and was the sound engineer for the film, started a campaign (Save the Chapel) to save one of the last pieces of this horror classic.

He started a Facebook donation site and already gained 5000 dollars. 50.000 dollars are needed. He has one year to get all the money. If it is not raised by then, officials will tear the chapel down!

Even if you do not want or can’t donate, please spread the word!!!

Watch the movie legally and for free as it is a public domain film!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_f2Enn8x5s]

Important Link (Video + Facebook link included)

Cinemassare

Le bagman – Profession: Meurtrier

Here comes another shorty. I have seen “Bagman” a few years ago and I came across it again today by pure accident.

I declare this Canadian flick, with a duration of 19 minutes, the best fun splatter amateur movie of all times. The story is the weakest aspect of the movie, but as so often in gory movies nobody cares about it because this is definitely much more fun than a profound story. Nevertheless I will do a brief summary: A girl wakes up in a hospital and tells a cop that she and her boyfriend were motivelessly attacked by a masked killer, who slew down the latter one. The girl succeeds in escaping but shortly after runs into a group of pseudo pimps. The Bagman insists on joining the party and the clash turns into one perfect freak show massacre. Guess who wins?! Bagman, the professional killer!

The actors are really, really bad and at first I had big difficulties to believe that this could work. In retrospect this is exactly why the movie is that damn funny. The actors know that they aren’t talented but they play with it and the bad acting is overdone on purpose. The directors completely concentrated on the splatter and gore effects and the Bagman dismembers people, detaches body parts, crushes heads and splashes in about blood and bowls while using all different kind of weapons. You can clearly see that movie and gore enthusiasts were at work here, and managed to do something completely funny and outstanding. Bagman has been made with a lot of love and sticks out the genre.

I have to say that this is one of the first times where I think that the German movie title fits better than the original. In Germany you buy the movie “Bagman – Operation Massenmord! and that’s exactly what the movie is about: A fucking Massenmord” but a damn hilarious one. Perfection!!

I have nothing more to declare. Just watch the movie and Happy Halloween.

Here is the full movie:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toXMdCazsnM]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r62aNnXOmVw]

Buy this movie here and support independent art!



The Hunt

I always hated the fucking dog at DuckHunt on the NES. His gleeful and malicious laugh always made me wish I could jump into my television and beat the crap out of that sucker! But this short movie made me shit my pants in fear as it is a dark take on the NES classic. Ain’t you a sweet little doggie? A-goo-goo-goo … Gosh, I better run and hide…

This movie is courtesy of Rainfall Films so give these guys a shout-out and some credit.