Mayhem – Life Eternal


First things first. I have been listening to Black Metal for a couple of years now, but I don’t give a damn about any kind of scene or about being trve, kvlt, frostbitten or whatever else there is. I do not care about Varg Vikernes’ political views or his world outlook. I do not support fucking church burnings (even though I think that religions are brainwashing institutions which detain people from free-thinking) or stupid murders. I am not a close-minded idiot who rejects everything but Black Metal but damn I love this crazy shit from the early 90ies.

Let’s switch over to the record now. Life Eternal is an EP which contains rough mixes of 5 songs from the great De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas record, which was released back in 1994. After Euronymous was killed, Attila lost all contact with Mayhem and De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas became a bestseller. The only “souvenir” the vocalist had from these times were the 5 rough songs he recorded for himself in the studio. Attila claims that these songs, even nowadays, always bring back strong and dark emotions and that he wants to share his feelings with the fans. After years of fighting for the rights of the record, he released this 3,000-copy limited A5 digipack EP in 2009, in co-operation with Season of Mist and his own label.

What makes this EP so special? There are a few things. First of all it’s the whole getup. The record doesn’t only come in a nice A5 format, it also includes 10 stickers, very rare or even unreleased pictures, letters and lyric sheets. The most interesting about the album are Attila’s vocal performances. He probably already had an idea of how the vocals should sound, nevertheless he tried out different styles and singing techniques in order to decide which one suited best for the different songs and overall atmosphere. It is not always that easy to hear differences between the songs from De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and the “original” but if you sit down and listen carefully you make clear distinctions.

Talking about differences you notice that Hellhammer’s drums on the Life Eternal EP are much more passive and in the background. I personally don’t like drums which are too present. This record also contains a Funeral Fog drum intro, which was cut out later on the “official” release. Looking at the guitars, I come to a similar conclusion. I like the guitars on the EP more, they are grungier and harsher, which support and underline and even perfect the extreme dark and dissonant atmosphere of Mayhem‘s sound and music.

People often tend to say that the fact of being a legend is larger than Mayhem’s musical accomplishments. With albums like De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, Mayhem – Live In Leipzig and Life Eternal, they easily convince us of the opposite. This record is pure evil and I don’t care if this release has been put out to profit from the band’s popularity or not. I personally think that Life Eternal is one of the best and most interesting records in the history of the band.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY9zhTlaMW0]

Dead Dudes in the House


I am sure everybody remembers his first zombie movie. If you were lucky it was most likely Night Of The Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead from 1978 or 2004 or Day of the Dead (1985). Well, my first zombie movie was none of them and you know what? I am still cooler than you because mine was: Dead Dudes in the House! I watched this movie years ago at a friend’s place and since then it doesn’t get off my head.

I have to admit that I forgot about the title for years but most of the scenes were stuck in my head and I regularly asked my friends and searched in forums for it. A few months ago the time had come and I found out the title: Dead Dudes in the House (yeah!!!). This is not a typical movie about the undead like you would expect it from Romero for example. First of all, I have to tell you that Troma Entertainment have their fingers in the pie. So, as the direction the movie is taking is cleared out, I want to tell you a bit about the story.

James Riffel’s movie from 1991 is about a group of teenagers who want to renovate an old house, which one of them had bought. Not knowing that the cheap mansion is haunted, one of the teenagers destroys a tombstone while they are inspecting the “garden”. After having entered the house they pretty soon come across an old Lady which from now on goes on a sadistic killing spree and turns the young people into her zombie army. Why all the agitation? Well, the teenagers destroyed the last resting-place of the woman which made her quite upset.

The story, some times, has a few longueurs and there could have been more gore scenes and blood in it. But I surprisingly liked this crazy story very much and the old lady is still a bit fishy. She actually was the second movie character which, as a “kid”, I was scared of.

First was this one (still creepy as shit):
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36WEn-9zs1U]
OK, back to topic. The actors are shitty but that’s a must in B-Movies and that’s what Dead Dudes in the House actually is: a B-Movie but a really cool, funny and even sometimes a bit scary one. This is the first movie where I hope that somebody will do a remake of.

While writing this short review, I was constantly thinking of a fight between Vera Cosgrove (the old zombie bitch from Braindead) and Leatherbee (the crazy and deranged undead granny from this movie), and I was wondering who would win. Make your bets and tell me in the comments.

P.S. I can’t post a video from the movie but here is an external link:
Dead Dudes in the House scene

Gayniggers From Outer Space

Directed by: Morten Lindberg

Cast: Coco P. Dalbert, Sammy Saloman, Gerard F. Hail

Whoaa whoa whooaaa, first off; chill dudes. This movie is by no means homophobic or racist, hence the movie title. There’s no need to start ranting about the movie or get out on the streets and start looting in utter dismay. Let me please introduce you to this masterpiece.

I remember when I watched this movie for the first time. It was a few years ago, when the blokes from the luxembourgish band John McAsskill  offered me 2 DVDs with a panoply of different trash movies. Me and Luc watched Gayniggers from Outer Space at his place and Luc’s first reaction was: “Eric, if this movie is gayporn I am not willing to watch it any further.” I just replied: “I do not fucking care mate, I’ll watch it anyways!”

Gayniggers from Outer Space is a danish production dating from 1992 which satires blaxploitation, science-fiction and homophobia.

This black and white movie (oh the irony) begins with the tripulation of the spaceship Ringmusculaturus II travelling through space looking for new planets unknown to the Gay universe. The Gayniggers from planet Anus are Captain ArmInAss, Captain B.Dick, Sargeant Shaved Balls and german speaking Mr. Schwul.

When analyzing Earth with their special radars the Gayniggers find out that planet Earth is also populated by female creatures, something they cannot bear; so they decide to go on a crusade to eliminate all the females on Earth and liberate all men from female tyranny. In this, the movie also makes fun about different ethnical stereotypes in which for example Germany is best known for not liking black colored people. Yes, this movie can’t be any more ridiculous and amusing.

One could think that this movie is so wrong, racist, homophobic and whatsoever, but you HAVE to watch it, to notice that it is not meant to be offensive or to be taken seriously. And if you still think that this movie is offensive, notice that the movie was first shown at the Stockholm Gay Film festival in 2006.

I watched the movie before writing this review and it made my day, once again. I would rather prefer this flick as a milestone in homosexual acceptance and tolerance than a shitpile like Brokeback Mountain which couldn’t be anymore pretentious and cliché-overloaded.

So, if you don’t take yourself too seriously and you aren’t too much of a stuck up cunt, please give this piece of art a chance and some credit.

Conclusion: disturbing, but still enjoyable to watch.

Crippled Black Phoenix – I, Vigilante


No new fresh food on my desk, so let’s talk a little bit about one of my favourite albums of 2010. Be ready for a laudation because I haven’t found much to criticize until this day. Started as a project of a collection of many well or less known post-rock musicians, Crippled Black Phoenix seems to have established itself as a truly independent supergroup with their latest album.

So what’s so special about this work? To be short and figurative: you actually can see the snow falling in the Ardennes in 1944 while the world goes down around you when listening to I, Vigilante. Epic probably is the most overused term these days, but excuse me to use it anyway. It is a post-rock concept album which doesn’t continue the line that has characterized post-rock for the last couple of years. Some may call the development boring, or overplayed. It doesn’t really matter.

Crippled Black Phoenix combines post-rock with elements like vocals and speed changes, which sometimes result in a short rock part, making it more receptive. Moreover they created that sound of Armageddon that keeps floating in your head especially during the cold seasons of the year. The more you listen to it, the more you will discover. Be it strings, wind instruments or piano, or be it the lyrics of the songs, turning each track into a little piece of literature in itself. Lots of people have compared this to Pink Floyd, in my eyes this is just one of many influences to find. The warm and melodious vocals (actually way too rare to find in this genre) top this album off. The front singer, Joe Volk, really amplifies the atmosphere, being rigorous, being sad, sometimes being nothing but wonderful.

The intro of track no. 4, Bastogne Blues, just makes you tremble. What comes afterwards is a great and pessimistic song that represents the whole idea of a grand album, although two songs still follow. Personally, I like to end the listening after Bastogne Blues because it is a perfect closure of this musical doomsday. But let’s be complete: Of a Lifetime, the second to last song, surprises with 80s guitars and a female singer, Daisy Chapman. Although it doesn’t really fit, it sticks in your mind and seems to try to deal with the whole story called life.

Let’s conclude with the last track, a hidden one, called Burning Bridges. It is bizarre, humorously, sad and happy. The song is a cover version (originally performed by The Mike Curb Congregation) of the title song of a 70’s comedy/war movie with Clint Eastwood. Compared to Bastogne Blues this certainly is the ironic end of the story. You decide which one to chose.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHCxKy2xWHs]
Recommendations: Troublemaker, Bastogne Blues.

The Toxic Avenger


People probably ask why there is going to be another review of this movie. The answer is quite simple: Because it deserves it!

First The Toxic Avenger is a low-budget trash comedy horror movie released by Troma Entertainment in 1985. Over the past years the film has become one of the most important campy B-Movies of the 80ies.

The story basically is about a boy called Melvin Junko, who is the biggest loser in town. He works as a cleaner in Tromaville’s fitness club and gets constantly mobbed by other teenagers. One day Melvin has to don a pink ballet tutu and gets chased through the whole fitness club. As a last resort he jumps out of the window and lands into a barrel full of toxic waste.

Melvin doesn’t die but changes into the first superhero born out of nuclear waste. From now on he is going to fight for justice and fairness in his hometown Tromaville.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27E4Qfj7iEY]
The Toxic Avenger is, in the first view, a cult classic trash movie but a deeper meaning and interpretation can also be recognized. The film can be described as an ironic mirror of the exaggerated cult of the body, cult of physical health and beauty societies. Furthermore, Melvin not only fights against crimes and the bad guys, he also attacks the corrupted local power structures. With this ideas, Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz call the viewer’s attention to important social problems (which today seem more relevant than ever) and want to support people´s social criticism. I think it is absolutely genius to “caricaturize” the brutal, dull, superficial and egoistic modern, mainly western societies with the help of an exaggerated B-Movie.

The last intention of reviewing a Troma Entertainment movie is to show my personal support and to promote the greatest independent film production and distribution company on earth. I highly respect Lloyd Kaufman for his devotion to independent movies, his supportive attitude towards movie-lovers and for campaining for Net Neutrality.

Important links:
Tromashop
Lloyd Kaufman
The Toxic Avenger

The Jacob Conspiracy – Colourful Crime


I’m pretty sure that the boys from the Jacob Conspiracy don’t want to hear it anymore (maybe they do, I actually haven’t talked to them), but let’s call a spade a spade: this album sounds like a Foo Fighters album. Is that a bad thing? Not at all!

However, there are two differences between the Foos and The Jacob Conspiracy: I’m quite convinced that Ken Brandenburger is a better singer than Dave Grohl (brownnosing no.1) and that in contrast to most Foo albums this one seems to grow stronger as time goes by (brownnosing no.2). Well then, let’s fill the Josy Barthel stadium! Alright, back to earth, not even the national football team does it. The opening song already gives the direction: sound, refreshing and often catchy rock and pop-rock.

The more I’ve listened to this album, the more I also had the feeling that Danko Jones had his finger in the pie. My personal highlight certainly is track number 4, Desire. A very bright and cheerful song that could have been your soundtrack of the summer if this had been released a bit earlier this year.

At the end of Colourful Crime you can find a handsome ballad and two entertaining acoustic songs. It was a good idea to put those in the end because the rocking flow of the main part of the album won’t be disturbed and the rock’n’roll train can roll on. Emily, the ballad, is perfectly suitable for radio, and guess what, I ejected the CD from my car radio yesterday during Emily to hear that she was played on Eldoradio the very same moment.

Negative points (to get the brown nose a bit cleaned off): the album surely has no downs, but one reason for this is a certain monotony in the refrains, especially during the middle of the album. The other thing is, and that surely is very subjective, that the sound often appears way too clean, too “gracious” in terms of rock’n’roll. I am nevertheless pretty sure that those songs are made to be performed live and that there will be way more dirty energy in the air. Note to myself: get to see them live a.s.a.p.!

At the end of the day, this is a well done rock album from a Luxembourgish band, that surely hasn’t reinvented the wheel, but that still has potential to do some more steps. Thumbs up.

Recommendations: Desire, Emily, Turn the Page (Acoustic).

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS


This movie, produced in the US in 1975, is a mixture and combines elements of the (Nazi) exploitation and sexploitation film genre.

The story deals with Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne) who is the commandant of the prisoner-of-war camp: Medical Camp 9. Being a doctor with homoerotic and sadistic affinities, she is interested in “scientific” medical experiments to prove that women are more indolent and therefore better soldiers than men.

Ilsa is represented as a raping nymphomaniac, who immediately has her victims (male prisoners of the camp) castrated and killed when those ejaculate before she orgasms. Only one prisoner, who is able to hold back his ejaculations manages to turn Ilsa into a more and more obedient, emotional and sexual dependent woman.

One problem with this movie is that the extreme hypersexual and sadistic fictional violence and torture doesn’t even get close to the real atrocities that happened in the camps during World War II. I got the feeling that the only purpose of using this historical topic was to provoke and to promote.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YS10vQ_ax8&bpctr=1414926074]
While I have to admit that the make-up, the effects, the movie set and the backgrounds are rather OK for a low-budget film, I have to complain about the unrealistic and unaesthetic Nazi utensils and the great lack of stagecraft. When even a Dyanne Thorne isn’t capable to imitate a German accent and fails more than once in pronouncing “Reich” correctly, I seriously wonder what the hell they were thinking. I also thought, quite a few times, that the actors rather tried doing a Russian accent than a German one.

If you are an (Nazi) exploitation fan or interested in underground movie genres. If you are not afraid of bad acting and the atmosphere of a trashy B-Movie. If you understand the intension of a low-budget movie. If you like tits, women in uniforms, blood and torture, Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS is the perfect movie!

Amores Perros


Directed & produced by: Alejandro González Iñarritu

Starring: Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo

Love is betrayal. Love is anguish. Love is sin. Love is selfishness. Love is hope. Love is pain. Love is death. What is love?

These are the first sentences on the cover of the Amores Perros DVD.

Amores Perros portrays the lifes and destinies of Octavio (Gael García Bernal), Daniel (Alvaro Guerrero) and El Chivo (Emilio Echevarría), whose futures will be tore off the rails by a tragic car accident in the middle of Mexico City.

There’s Octavio, a carefree youngster who lives in modest circumstances with his mother, his brother Ramiro and Susana, Ramiro’s girlfriend. The young couple share a troubled relationship with the worse matter that they have a baby. Poor as they are and with Susana still going to school, it’s Octavio who tries to convince Susana to leave Ramiro, as he is deeply in love with her and promises that he would be a good father and make good money to take care of both. All he wants is to leave town with Susana and start a new life. So he takes his dog Cofi, a rottweiler, to dog fights to get some cash to fulfill his dream.

Daniel is a successful businessman, married with 2 daughters. He’s cheating on his wife with supermodel Valeria who’s a superstar in Mexico and moves to her new flat with her little terrier Richie. Will Daniel find happiness in his new relationship with a new, younger woman? Or is this new kind of love just superficial, a consequence of Daniels midlife crisis and based on physical satiation?

And then there’s El Chivo, a homeless man who used to be a professor, but then decided to become a revolutionary and joins the guerillas. He lost touch with his family due to his new lifestyle, his daughter thinks he’s dead and his wife died recently. He is a part-time hitman who makes ends meet by killing people, always accompanied by his dogs. All he wants is to see his daughter and get in touch with her but he does not find the courage to do so because he’s ashamed of what he became.

3 protagonists who could not be any more different and even though they don’t know each other, their lives will drastically change after a tragic car accident involving 2 of them.

Amores Perros is a critical movie about love and all its circumstances; a suspicious and destructive piece of art. The protagonists trust their lifes to the people they love and will be disillusioned later on, although the dogs remain loyal to them; a nice analogy about love towards dogs and human beings.

It is most definitely not a movie for sensitive viewers and due to its playtime (148 minutes) not everyone’s cup of tea, as it has a lengthy narration with all its action happening in the last 30 minutes.

It’s the pessimistic point of view about love and the martyrdom that comes with it which makes this movie one of my all-time favourite flicks.

So, if you’ve been disappointed once in your life or if you are in a recent relationship you should check this movie to once again get aware that love is not only about happy times, rainbows and singing unicorns.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5HTBYR7m0o]
Conclusion: hard to digest but most definitely a must see.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2012

Released: September 2011

Developer: Konami

Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, PS2, Nintendo 3DS, Nokia 3310

Tested: Xbox 360

It’s no big secret that I’m a big football fan. When it comes to my favourite team I even tend to become politically incorrect. And as a matter of fact I love playing football games.

Choosing the right football game is like choosing which party to vote when there’s a turd party and a clyster party. Long story short, between the FIFA and the PES franchise the only common denominator is that none of both are perfect football simulations; all having their pros and their cons.

Screenshot1

I chose PES over FIFA because, to me, the game had a more realistic approach to my football knowledge hence the inferior graphics and mo-cap. This years release features Active AI, this means your teammates have a better understanding for the game you play and for example defenders that support the winger on the “corridors”.

I always thought of FIFA of being a closed, scripted experience with big flaws in ball physics and AI but then, it’s THE game that’s got almost every league licensed and a better support on bug fixing and so on. On the other hand PES has a better tactics editor which makes FIFA look like a football game for babies.

The best PES release how so ever will still be PES 6 on the PS2, as it was a fast paced simulation of kick and rush with the overall feeling for a “everything is possible here” mentality. But then came the current gen consoles and that’s when Konami screw it completely. The next releases became all known for being bloated bug-ware, not to mention the completely debilitated AI and the stiffness in the players movements.

When I grabbed the demo on my Xbox for this years release I was pleasantly surprised. The controls improved a lot, with the players being more flexible and more responsive and the biggest improvement I’ve noticed directly was that each player tried to get the ball no matter how far or close the ball was, something that had to be fixed after PES 2011 where players didn’t even intervene when the ball rolled a few millimeters past their feet. Yes, that game sucked that much indeed.

But after my initial euphoria for PES 2012 came the great disillusionment. Konami did not succeed in releasing another milestone in football simulations.

At first I thought my controller was fucked but then I noticed what was going on with the game. When you’re playing with the 1st controller on the XBox your selected player is not WILLING to run for more than 10 meters without stopping for a short period of time. This means, if you’re doing a quick counter your striker will not run towards the goal with lightspeed, but stop every now and then with no apparent reason to do so! Just google for “PES 2012 XBox Stutter bug”.

One can say that this is a bug that will be fixed directly but the game’s been out for over a week and nothing has been done yet to fix it.

What’s the point of a developer team having a section for sports games with PES being the MAIN franchise they are working on full time when obviously there’s no one there to test the game on all platforms before releasing it? If for example Polyphony Digital had released Gran Turismo 5 with a bug that forces your car to push the breakes every 5-10 seconds the users would go apeshit on the internet and Polyphony had their name ruined for a long time.

Not so for Konami. Ever since the PES franchise moved towards current gen consoles the games were doomed to fail because of the huge amount of bugs that affect the overall gameplay experience, with the stutter bug being the tip of the iceberg.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJol2_4E7r4]

I could mention that PES 2012 features the Liga Portuguesa for the first time in its history, but when the only licensed teams are Porto, Benfica and Sporting; I really don’t think that this new feature is noteworthy.

For the non-existent German League you can choose between Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen. Yeah…

And this is the next point that pisses me off! What’s the point in featuring a new league when 13 of 16 teams have fake names and logos? Why is there still no Bundesliga featured in PES? Considering the current financial situation in Portugal and the popularity and relevance of the portuguese league in the world of football I do ask myself if Konami did not have enough budget or arguments to license the portuguese league entirely. I’m pretty sure the portuguese federation asked millions and bazillions of euros for the license…

PES2012 had the potential to become a next PES6 for me, but demonstrated once again that Konami does not have enough knowledge and consistency to compete with EA Sports and their FIFA franchise.

I think that the US cover for PES 2012 resumes the skills from Konami. All hail Cristiano “Thalidomide” Ronaldo.

Conclusion: I can not say that I’m disappointed as that would be a compliment

The Giant Claw

Without the incredible James Rolfe from Cinemassacre.com, I probably wouldn’t know this movie. In his great Top 10 Giant Movie Monsters video James puts Giant Claw on first place and leaves movies like King Kong, The Lost World, The Beast, Gamera and Godzilla behind. Even the Godfather of Stop-Motion: Ray Harryhausen was no match for it.

The Giant Claw is a Science Fiction film from 1957 and deals with a gigantic bird (17.000.000 years old) from an antimatter galaxy (!!) which comes to earth to nest and terrorizes mankind. Because of its power shield, the bird seems to be indestructible and invincible as it can’t be followed on radars. The monster can only be outflanked by a special type of isotope which manages to deactivate its shield and allows missiles to kill it.

If you think the story is already fucked up wait until you see the monster! The bird is really, and I mean really, poorly done. You immediately recognize a marionette puppet and sometimes you even see the wires. I can’t find any more words to describe it. Let me show you a picture and you know what I mean:

Directed by Fred Sears, this movie is not to be taken as an earnest monster flick. Even though special effects from Ray Harryhausen’s movie Earth vs. the Flying Saucers were used, King Kong, 24 years earlier, was scarier, more realistic and done better as The Giant Claw.

When it comes to Monster Movies I stick with 3 categories. The 1st one are movies which have everything. Great monsters, a realistic story and are nice to watch. Second are those like Giant Claw: cult trash Monster Movies at its finest. The third category are those movies which just try and/but fail.

Conclusion: Watch this movie, now!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOj0nXpRqX8]